How to introduce new technology in your veterinary practice
The best way to introduce new technology in a veterinary practice is to let your team name the problem, trial one solution for four weeks with a champion leading it, remove the old way of doing things, and then review what worked before you roll it out further.
7 min readAt the end of September I was at VetEdge Congress in Exeter, England, speaking in the leadership stream run by SPVS (the UK's Society of Practising Veterinary Surgeons) about technology in practice. There were about 15 clinics in the room, and the people who came wanted to lead. They were looking for ways to improve their clinics, and you could feel the urgency.
If you run or manage a practice, here's what I told the room.
The best way to introduce new technology in a veterinary practice is to let your team name the problem, trial one solution for four weeks with a champion leading it, remove the old way of doing things, and then review what worked before you roll it out further.
Why practices are looking at technology now
Your team is under more pressure than it was a few years ago. There's more admin, clients expect more, and every extra task in the exam room makes it harder to keep appointments on time. On top of that, there's a risk of losing drug income, and the opportunity cost of time spent on paperwork instead of patients.
Some clinics have put this off for years, and I think it's because they haven't had to look. We've been through a period of growth in pet numbers and a shortage of vets, so clinics have been busy with the clients they already have. That's been stressful, and nobody had time to look at efficiency while people kept coming through the door.
That wave is slowing. The puppy boom has gone and the pets from it are getting older. In the US, AVMA reported that new puppy and kitten patients fell 9% between August 2023 and August 2024, based on data from about 6,000 mostly small animal practices. So practice owners are now asking how they make their business different from the one down the street.
Ask your team to name the problems first
My main message to the room was this: don't go for the shiny piece of tech. Speak to your team, and let them tell you what they're battling. They know full well.
Is it the number of prescriptions? Is it managing the emails that come in? Have you got clients contacting you by text and messaging apps as well as phone? Ask your team for their top three problems, then help them work out which are the biggest.
Then say, "Okay, let's see if we can find a solution," and let them explore it with you. That way the whole team agrees on the problem before anything changes.
One more tip: ask your team to ask their friends at other clinics, and use veterinary discussion groups. Other practices are probably having the same problems. Find out what they've used, bring it back, and try it out.
Find a technology advocate
A lot of vets aren't interested in technology, and that's fine. It isn't their skill set, and they never wanted to get into it. Many clinics don't know what tools are out there or what those tools could do for them, partly because everyone is too busy to find out.
So find a technology advocate, either someone inside your clinic or an expert from outside, and delegate the research to them. They can come back with an informed view of the pros, the problems and the risks of each option, and they can take the project through from start to finish.
Where technology can help, from booking to the back office
In my talk I took the room through the clinic from start to finish, and asked what solutions exist at each stage, from paper-based basics to what's already in your PIMS to the new AI tools. Here are the questions I'd ask at each stage:
| Stage | Questions to ask |
|---|---|
| Before the appointment | How do clients know they have an appointment? What reminder system do you use, and is it a third-party service? Do you message clients by text, messaging app or email? Can clients book online? |
| Front desk | Do you have kiosk check-in? Are your payments integrated, so collecting payments and reconciling them takes less time? How does the front desk receive messages and pass them to the team? Do receptionists have a task management system? |
| Exam room | Is your estimate process smooth and easy? Are you using an AI scribe to capture notes? Are you using AI billing tools? |
| Pharmacy | Do you offer home delivery? Are your wellness plans integrated, so they create less admin? Does your PIMS make prescriptions smooth, or will you plug into a third-party prescription hub that connects to online pharmacies? |
| Hospital | Do you use a digital whiteboard to keep care consistent, capture missed charges and keep the whole clinic in sync about inpatients? |
| Back office | Are you using large language models (LLMs) to help draft staff schedules, contracts and first drafts of marketing, and to analyze your reports? |
Some clinics are already building their own tools. A few have built an in-house chatbot for the front desk. A receptionist can ask it how to create an estimate, or what to tell a client whose dog is vomiting, and it answers from the clinic's own data sheets. The receptionist gets an informed reply without going to find a colleague.
On the money side, drug prices are getting more competitive. These same AI tools can help you work out your net drug costs and the price you need to charge to compete.
If you want to see which of these tasks can run without anyone touching them, Dr Miteki Degawa has written about which tasks your PIMS should automate.
How to run a four-week technology trial
Once the team has picked a problem and you've found a possible solution, trial it properly:
- Find a champion. Pick someone who believes in the solution, often the person who brought it to you. They work with the team, encourage people and help them understand what the tool can do for them.
- Set it up well. Give the champion time to get the trial set up properly before it starts.
- Remove the old way. If the old way is still there, people will default to it. Once it's gone, people might grumble at first, but it helps them take that first step with the new tool.
- Run it for four weeks. Ask everyone to give it a really good go.
- Review it. Did it work? Who took it up, and why? Who didn't, and why not? Your champion can ask the people who didn't like it what the problems were.
- Roll it out, then start the next one. Some people will love the tool and enthuse others. Use what you learned from the people who didn't, then bring in the next solution.
The message to your team is simple: we all agree we've got this problem, here's a solution I think might solve it, and let's try it for four weeks together.
Why most questions were about AI scribes
We had a great Q&A at the end, and most of the questions were about AI scribes.
I think that's because scribes are the AI tool people are most familiar with. The solution that resonated most, in every place I've given this talk, is the AI scribe, and the main reason is time. Practices know their vets already struggle to keep appointments on schedule, and every new task in the exam room adds to that. A scribe makes it easier to capture the notes, which saves time in every appointment.
The questions fell into two groups. The first was how scribes work and whether they're reliable. A lot of people had heard that scribes produce too much content. I explained that the output is within your control: you can set it to be short, long or detailed, however you want it. (We've published benchmark results on scribe accuracy and a guide to how much time a scribe saves.)
The second group was about getting the team to use them. Several clinics had started using an AI scribe but hadn't managed to roll it out to other teams, because they'd met a lot of resistance. This is where the trial steps above help most: a champion, the old way removed, four weeks, then a review that asks the people who didn't use it why.
My talk also covered the risks around data privacy and AI, so check how any tool handles your data before your trial starts.
Will technology make your practice feel less personal?
Some practice owners tell me they don't want technology because they don't want to lose the human touch. I think that's a false choice.
Your practice is set up with a certain number of people, and those people only have so many hours each day to give clients and their animals, whether that's in the exam room or out on a farm call. Technology should mainly be used to give your team more of those hours back. Automate the routine work, and your team spends more time with the client and the animal in front of them.
Where practices will be in five years
The practices in that room were in very different places. Some had their practice management system and nothing else. Others were already building their own apps and plug-ins. Most had something they'd been meaning to do. A few told me they'd been planning to add online booking for 10 years and still hadn't gotten around to it. (Here's what clients want from online booking.)
I think that spread will get wider as technology speeds up. Over the next five or so years, you'll walk into some clinics that are completely paperless, with tablets, automated check-in and maybe no front desk at all. Other clinics will still be working at a basic level. If you're the only vet in town, you may get away with that. If you're competing with clinics nearby, you'll need to match what your clients expect, and those expectations keep getting higher.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I get my veterinary team to use new technology?
Let your team name the problem first, then pick a champion who believes in the solution to lead a four-week trial. Remove the old way of doing things during the trial so nobody defaults to it, and review afterward with the people who didn't take it up.
- How long should a technology trial last in a veterinary practice?
Four weeks gives your team long enough to give a new tool a really good go. Set it up well before it starts, then review who used it, who didn't and why.
- What technology should a veterinary practice start with?
Start with whichever problem your team names as the biggest. In my talks, the tool practices ask about most is the AI scribe, because it makes notes easier to capture and saves time in every appointment.
- I'm a farm vet. How does this affect me?
The way you bring in new technology is the same in a farm practice: ask your team for their top three problems, find a champion, remove the old way and run a four-week trial.
- Do AI scribes write too much?
The length of an AI scribe's notes is within your control. You can set the output to be short, long or detailed, depending on what your practice wants.
