Making the ER experience a low stress experience

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On this week's episode of The Vet Blast Podcast, our host Adam Christman, DVM, MBA, and Ken Yagi, MS, RVT, VTS (ECC), (SAIM), Veterinary Emergency Group, chief veterinary nursing officer, discuss how open concept hospitals can help make emergency visits less stressful and more informative for veterinary teams, clients, and patients.

Below is a partial transcript.

Ken Yagi, MS, RVT, VTS (ECC), (SAIM): When we think about the traditional way that the veterinary practices function, it's usually a closed environment where there's like a reception room and exam room that the people go into and wait for somebody to come and talk to them. And when treatments need to be done, their pets are taken to the back where all the action takes place. And so the pet owner sits in the room, wondering, 'what's taking so long? What's going on with my pet, I haven't gotten an update in a little while.'

And then they hear like a cat screaming in the background and they say, 'Wait, was that my cat?' Or, they start hearing a little bit of commotion and people running around and raising voices or whatever and they wonder like, 'could that be my pet? How come nobody's telling me what's going on? Is my pet okay?' And that's the kind of situation that a closed hospital may create for the pet owners.

But an open hospital is actually different in that we have a setup where it's an open floor plan. The pet owners come right into the treatment room and they get to be seen by a doctor and a nurse team right away. They don't have to fill out any paperwork. They don't have to sign that they agree to a certain financial cost before they start seeing anyone that can help them. Instead, they get help right away, which is like hugely helpful, and it puts them at peace or at ease. So the open hospital concept, there's lots and lots of benefits to it.