Unique survey will collect data to help measure the health and chart the future of veterinary practices
How long has it been (if ever) since you did a diagnostic of your practice? Do you have any benchmarks to measure how you’re faring in areas like continuous improvement, pet health outcomes, client retention, marketing, or practice growth?
LifeLearn is here to help. We’re conducting a survey to collect data and knowledge in many of the areas that veterinary practices aren’t traditionally measuring as part of their day to day operations.
Randy Valpy, President and CEO, LifeLearn, said this will be a unique opportunity to look at both the pain points that different sized practices are experiencing as well as ways they have overcome some of the challenges being faced in a constantly changing industry.
“As far as we’re aware this kind of information isn’t available,” Valpy said. “We’ll be sharing these findings to help veterinary teams gain better understanding of how they measure up in areas like education, communication and business optimization.”
“Offshoots of this will look at the effectiveness of marketing, measures that improve client compliance, and ways that practices are addressing things like client retention and attraction,” he said.
Mark Stephenson, DVM, Chief Veterinary Officer, sees the survey as an opportunity to not only provide some critical benchmarks for the industry, but also to help LifeLearn respond with tools, supports and resources to advance in those areas where the evidence shows a need for improvement. “This isn’t a thinly disguised effort to sell our products and services. LifeLearn is a knowledge organization that is 100 percent focused animal health. We expect our survey participants to learn as much as we will from our survey findings.”
You can do the short survey here, a more in-depth survey will be available after February 1st.
Aggregated data available in March
Results of the survey will be provided when they are available over the next several weeks. Participants in the longer survey will receive results specific to their practice. Stephenson said, “This will include seeing where your practice sits in the areas being measured, areas you can work on to improve your practice, as well as things you may be doing that are setting the standard in different areas of animal health and client satisfaction.”
He adds, “It will be interesting to see the results of practices at different stages of the life cycle and to identify both common and unique concerns that veterinary teams are experiencing.” Information collected will be aggregated and completely confidential.
Valpy notes that this isn’t a report card. “Rather, it’s an opportunity to identify challenges and opportunities participants may share with other practitioners throughout North America. Whether you’re just starting-up, focused on growth, dealing with change, facing increased competition, or thinking ahead towards succession or a sale – your veterinary practice will benefit from these insights and, if you choose to use them, the solutions that LifeLearn will develop based on what we learn.”
The ultimate goal is also to gather insights from the entire team. Practice managers, veterinarians, veterinary nurses, technicians and administrative staff are all encouraged to do the survey.
If you choose to do the shorter survey now, you will receive an email invitation to do the more in-depth version. Participation is entirely voluntary.
Valpy emphasizes that the survey isn’t a one-shot wonder. “This is a unique opportunity for the practice to receive updates each year as we will continue to collect evidence on an annual basis, report back on the findings, measure against the benchmarks that will have been established, and advance our own tools and resources to continue to meet changing industry needs.”
The link to the longer survey will be on the LifeLearn veterinary homepage after February 1st and will close in early March.
