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Editor's Notes

1. > Nursing consults are classes and consults planned and run by the nurses at the clinic that will involve utilising the training and knowledge of nurses to benefit clients with normal everyday issues such as training their new puppies, informing them about diets for weight loss, dental care and on-going maintenance as well as performing minor consults involving suture removals and nail trims which are easily handled by the nurses and would normally take the vets time away from more urgent and serious cases. They will open up a niche for clients who have a problem with their pets but do not feel it to be serious enough to take their animal to the vet. The aim of theses consults is to provide clients and their pets with advice and help for their healthy pets as well as their sick ones in order to make a more rounded clinic and create greater customer satisfaction.
2. The client and the patient will receive multiple benefits from having a nurse available for them to consult with. The nurse will have the time to speak with the client about what may seem like relatively minor problems for a client to see a vet but which may have a noticeable impact on their lives. Having someone to talk to about this will make them feel better able to deal with the problem and to make informed decisions that benefit both client and patient. This will create a better relationship with their pet. The patient will benefit by having a nurse offer advise on their care which will help the client avoid mistakes such as over feeding, lack of exercise, bad diet, poor grooming etc. these things will improve the overall health of the patient, making both it and the client happier.
3. We have many nurses at this clinic who have years of learning and experience but often their main roles are feeding, toileting and cleaning the patients. This is valuable but does not give the nurses a chance to utilise all their training and learning especially those of us who have a real passion for certain subjects that they would love to share with someone. Nursing clinics will give them that opportunity making nurses feel more important to the clinic and increasing their self-esteem. It would also take the pressure off vets to be everywhere all at once which would make them friendlier and easier to be around. It would also encourage teamwork if the vets and nurses worked together with a patient and client to provide long term care. This sort of treatment would create greater loyalty among the clinics client base leading them to come back more often and buy things. As well a nursing clinic can offer the clinic new sources of income and the employees will feel more va;ued and hence happier in their work and happy employees are more productive.
4. I would like to divide these nursing clinics into two categories. Consults and clinics. A nursing consult can happen in clinic during normal opening hours so long as a room is available to use. This would utilise the room more effectively as in quiet parts of the day the rooms often stand empty. Each consult can be taken by a qualified veterinary nurse who has the knowledge and passion for the subject as those qualities are more likely to make the client feel valued. I would like these consults to take over the nail trims, suture removals, anal gland expression, grooming and repeat injections that the vets currently do as they are minor procedures that nurses are completely capable of doing. I would also like to introduce preventative health consults. These would help clients make the right decisions in regards to caring for their pets and keep them happier and healthier.
5. The nursing clinics are longer more in depth courses usually run as a group and would need time and space dedicated to them. I would like these to occur in our spare room at the clinic on saturdays afterhours. This would allow more clients to attend as week days are often busy and many clients have work and children to worry about. They should be carried out over four weeks in order to give clients as much information as possible with time in between to digest the information given. Each class should only run for an hour including breaks in order to avoid overloading clients with information. Again they should be run by a knowledgeable qualified nurse and I would like the courses to include puppy and kitten classes in order to give new clients a good start with their new pets and allow these babies to get the most out of their socialisation period.
6. A nurse is not a vet. This benefits the client by making the cost of advice easier to afford. The costs of extended consults are to reflect the amount of time a nurse’s time is engaged. The cost of Nursing clinics needs to reflect how much running them is going to cost the clinic including welcome packages, use of venue and staff wages. Part of this cost could be recouped if we could have a company endorse us and support some of our running costs
7. Clients services members and the vets are important in the advertising of these services because they can often have first contact with the client. They can then refer the case to a nurse in order to get them more involved. Once clients know a nurse can help them they will often tell other people of the service they received at the clinic. Facebook can be really important in advertising as it can reach many people, a post online can often reach more people than a newspaper ad and is more enjoyable than junk mail in the letter box.
8. Client services can start booking all new nail trims, suture removals, grooms and anal gland expression with the nurses rather than the vet. Vets who are passing over regular repeat injections and other similar services to the nurse can explain to the client about these new services and even personally introduce the client to the nurse to make the next time less intimidating for both. Once the small regular procedures are being done by the nurses they can start talking to clients about health care during these consults and encourage them to come back for a more indepth consult. Vets can recommend clients have one of these consults and posters and fliers in the waiting room will help encourage clients to think about the possible need their pets might have for one of these consults.
9. It is important that every interaction with a client and their pet is recorded and evaluated so on-going improvements can occur in order to make the clinic nursing consults as excellent as they can be. Nurses should be trained in how to run a puppy school so they are prepared when classes start in order to present a professional and well informed impression for the clients
10. Once puppy pre-school has had a few classes and is well on its way to being a successful addition to our clinic we can look at introducing other classes for clients to attend.
11. I would like to try running first aid classes in the future as well. I feel it is important that our clients know how to care for their pets in a situation where the vet is not nearby in order to prevent them panicking and give their pets a good chance at making it as well. Once the other classes are up and running we should advertise through these classes, in clinc posters and word of mouth in order to attract clients to these classes.
12. The following time line is fairly self explanatory but I can walk you through. Starting with routine grooming and other daily care consults as well as suture removals we can slowly build up a client base for nurses. During this time we should advertise the preventative health consults and offer specials to clients who sign up in order to garner interest.
13. Have themes months. E.g. the first month can be about nutrition. Have a special on certain maintenance diets to encourage clients to come along and discuss them. Training of nurses for puppy pre-school should begin at least 3 months before the classes begin.
14. For the next few months the aim should be to have successfully function nursing consults and attracting client interest to our puppy pre-school. Once the classes have started we should review each class and the entire course in order to make improvements and better the experience for the clients.
15. At the end of a year I would like our core consults and clinics to be running. They will still need continual reviews and always will in order to always make our classes and consults relevant to our clients. At this point I would like to consider the addition of first aid consults. This would involve training our staff to make them qualified and knowledgeable instructors. In 1 year and 6 months time from the start of nursing consults I would like to introduce a first aid class. It would run twice yearly with four 1 hour classes in the same format as kitten kindy and puppy pre-school.
16. WOOOO! GOAL! This is where I would love to be in 2 years time.
17. The client is discharged by the nurse and then called to follow up and see how things are going after the surgery. This is where the nurse first makes contact. At suture removal the nurse can offer some lifestyle advise to the client and follow this up with a quick consult possibly free to see how the patient is. This makes sure the client is supported and shows that as a clinic we care about the development of their pet and any problems he may have. At consult a problem is noticed. At this point it may need referral to someone more skilled and a nurse needs to recognise when a problem is beyond their skill level. During the course of time when the problem is being dealt to the nurse is following up with the client making sure they stay in the loopand have someone to contact when they feel they need help. This gives the clinic a face for this client and makes asking for help less scary
18. Another example is a post dental patient. Again the nurse is a point of contact for the client that they know and can get in touch with if they have any concerns. The nurse is able to share her experience with the client in order to help the patients recovery and prevent the same situation reoccuring