Surviving to Thriving: From struggling young vet to confident professional – with founder George Brownlee

Nicole Baldry BVSc BSc (Hons) MRCVS, Vetoquinol’s Farm Animal Business Manager for the south of England, explains how VetIMPRESS can help practices keep track of the products and services provided to their farm clients.

“As a farm vet myself, I know if it’s been a demanding day and I’m tight for time or if it’s the middle of the night and I have to attend an emergency, I tell myself that I won’t bill the work now, I’ll do it later,” says Nicole. “Then when I eventually get round to doing it, sometimes I don’t remember what I did. Did I use my anti-inflammatories or the farmer’s? How long was I actually on farm doing the job? Often I won’t remember unless I record what I’ve done and billed for it there and then.”

Noting this data in real-time is not just important for accurate billing, it’s crucial vets record information such as correct batch numbers and expiry dates when they administer medicines. This is information they are legally obliged to give their farmer clients. So how can vets record data on farm quickly and easily? This is where VetIMPRESS can help.

With VetIMPRESS, vets can capture data all in one place, from lab test results, to services provided, to consent forms, and medicines administered. The lab reports section of VetIMPRESS includes a tick box to indicate if a lab case has been billed or not. As well as bringing efficiency to the practice, this also ensures that everything is properly captured and billed.

“Vets who use VetIMPRESS just need to log in on their tablet or phone, then they’ll be able to easily do things like create delivery notes with itemised lists of services and treatments provided which they can send directly to farmers,” explains Nicole. “The VetIMPRESS “medicine cupboard” accurately tracks stock whether in the dispensary or in a vet’s car, meaning information such as medicine batch numbers and expiry dates are pre-loaded so farmers will receive those as well to ensure they stay compliant.”

Once the delivery note is completed by a vet, vet tech, or foot trimmer, it is stored in the system, so anyone with access can view the information. Colour coding enables staff to see what has been billed (green flag) and what has yet to be billed (red flag), and so can be chased up. This creates a more effective and transparent way of working across the vet practice.

“For vets, this visibility of data means if a colleague has seen a cow on a Friday night and you go out to see her the following morning, you can easily find out exactly what your colleague did, and which treatment was given.”

“Being able to generate reports on body condition score, mobility score, foot trimming events and lab work helps vets build up a picture of animals over time. This makes their services more valuable to both the farmer and the practice,” says Nicole. “As soon as a vet has done the work, they can create a report at the click of a button. This report can be sent straight to the farmer who can instantly see the result of the work completed.”

VetIMPRESS helps to demonstrate the added value the vet, vet tech, or foot trimmer service can provide. Nicole points to the example of a practice describing how VetIMPRESS works with its vet techs and foot trimmers. The result has been the creation of a bespoke service for farmers.

“The vet techs visit the farm for mobility scoring and sometimes body conditioning scoring, and the farmer pays for a scoring service,” explains Nicole. “The vet techs then send their scoring reports to the farmer, the farm’s vet, and the foot trimmer, who goes out the next day and makes sure that all the lame cows are identified for foot trimming. They then generate a report from their foot trimming which goes back to the vet and the vet tech. Everyone is kept informed about what’s going on and it gets people to talk to each other about the situation on-farm.

For Nicole, VetIMPRESS is the solution that could bring farm animal veterinary practice in line with vets who work with domestic animals.

“When you take your dog to the vet, the vet would immediately put information on their practice management system about the medicines they gave along with the batch numbers and expiry dates. There would also be consent forms and other information that all of the other vets could see. Why should that be any different for cows and sheep? With VetIMPRESS, it doesn’t have to be,” says Nicole. “All data relating to the individual animal is recorded in one place, in real-time, for all relevant stakeholders to access, whenever they need it. So don’t leave the practice without it!”