Procedural Systems Will Lead to Success

Peter Weinstein, DVM, MBA, owner of PAW Consulting and executive director of the Southern California Veterinary Medical Association, explains how implementing systems within your veterinary practice creates a consistent, excellent experience for both clients and staff.

“A system is—well if you think of the human body, we have the gastrointestinal system, the respiratory system, the cardiovascular system. Basically, these are a multitude of organs and other adjuncts that help work together to pump blood, digest food. Well in veterinary hospitals we have systems as well: There's a client service system, a technician system, an animal care system and they're composed of individual processes or subsystems that ultimately break down to a molecular level of how do you answer the phone? How do you walk the dog? How do you clean a cage? How do you perform a dentistry for a level 1 mouth? How do you perform a dentistry for a level 2 mouth?

It's essentially building a recipe so that things are done the same way each time, every time, without fail and can literally be performed by any member of the veterinary practice team because they're all taught how to do it the same way each time. And now you ultimately are building a cookbook full of these recipes, which are the processes of delivering so that now when you hire new staff you've also created a training manual. And so you are able to give a consistent experience for clients.

I spent $4.25 at Starbucks for a grande latte that I can make it home for less than 50 cents but I go for that experience. Clients now are looking for an experience within your practice and to do so everybody's got to deliver it the same way each time. So if I go to Starbucks in Japan, I'm gonna get the same experience that I get in Australia, California, or New York or London or wherever the case may be. Clients want that in your practice. They want a predictable experience and that will keep them coming back. So systems help you provide a consistent client experience—again patient experience, staff experience, and management experience.

And honestly from a staff standpoint, staff love to know what their expectations are and here they are, clearly delineated through a series of systems and processes that they can deliver and now they know what the expectations for themselves are as staff members, too. So to me, systems lead to a lead to success and to me systems are the solution.”