Developing Your Practice Team?... Consider Accreditation

Reprinted from NAVC Clinician's Brief, November 2006.

Every veterinary practice thrives on the strength of its team. But what is the source of that strength? Where competence is a given, a trio of intangible assets sets high-performing practices apart from their less-successful counterparts:

• Commitment
• Teamwork
• Alignment with organization goals

No veterinary practice can afford to ignore these human capital issues. As both medicine and business become increasingly sophisticated, it is more important than ever that all team members within the practice function as an efficient team.

Veterinary practices face special challenges in creating high-performing teams. Divergent treatment philosophies and protocols, barriers separating professional and administrative team members, and confusion about the organization’s goals all threaten the health of veterinary practices. These threats can’t be overcome by top-down initiatives or by afternoon workshops in team building. To help team members understand how their daily efforts contribute to the long-term success of the practice, start by posing three questions:

• What results are you being paid to produce?
• What tasks and responsibilities will achieve those results?
• What role does teamwork play in achieving those results?

Laying the Groundwork

It’s quite likely that even the practice owner and manager will be hard-pressed to answer these questions. It is the owner’s responsibility to define the mission and to work with the practice manager to define intermediate results to achieve the mission.

After laying the groundwork, the management team must devise training and activities that establish for team members a clear line of sight among daily activities, intermediate results, and the practice’s mission and culture. Creating a cohesive practice team focused on achieving organization-level goals requires a sustained, long-term effort that touches every member of the practice team.

Accreditation as a Tool

One tool for accomplishing this task is practice accreditation awarded by the American Animal Hospital Association. A three-to-nine-month process, AAHA accreditation recommends every member of the practice team participate in a review of protocols and procedures to refine and improve processes in five areas; quality of care, diagnostics and pharmacy, management, medical records, and facility.

Practice owners and managers say that, although accreditation helps them deliver high-quality care, comply with laws and regulations, and improve business processes, the primary benefit is it builds a high-performing practice team.

Identifying Strengths & Weaknesses

Jeanette Lubenau, DVM, owner of Above and Beyond pet Care in Lubbock, Texas, which recently earned AAHA accreditation, agrees. “I have a small team and realized I couldn’t do it all by myself,” she explains. “Everyone had to be involved [in the accreditation process].” Each of the practice’s seven employees, from Dr. Lubenau to kennel attendant Amber Brown, agreed to be responsible for reviewing a subset of the AAHA’s 880 standards for accreditation that most closely related to the work they do. Team members looked for things that the practice did well and opportunities for improvement.

During team meetings, the entire practice discussed the standards and quizzed one another about them. “It really brought us together,” Dr. Lubenau says. “By sharing the information, we’re all more educated, and that results in better service. For example, the team is better able to explain a dental procedure to our clients.”

Carry-Over Benefits

When practice teams mesh, overall operation becomes more efficient. As a result of those efficiencies, Dr. Lubenau is now able to leave work around 6 p.m., about two hours earlier than before her practice became accredited. By recognizing and drawing on the expertise of each member of the practice team, the accreditation process can also reveal leadership qualities in unexpected places.

“We found we had a lot more leaders in the practice than we thought [we did],” says Pam Cole, CEO and hospital administrator or Irvine Veterinary Services in Irvine, California. “They weren’t just in the management group. It was wonderful to see how much talent could come out of… the team.” During the self-evaluation process, Cole’s team overhauled their pain management procedures. With 48 team members in two practices that were open 13 hours a day, seven days a week, a policy change of this magnitude could be next to impossible. However, the team-centered approach endorsed by the accreditation process, Cole said, made implementation relatively “painless.”

“Everyone, from the receptionists to our kennel people, was able to review the standards and share their ideas or concerns” before the new procedures were implemented, she said. The message this sent to team members was loud and clear: Your contributions are essential to our success.

“Accreditation builds better understanding of the practice’s overall operation and goals, and how each team member, whether working individually or together, affects the practice’s ability to achieve its goals,” Debbie Gadomski, AAHA practice accreditation manager explains. “Veterinary team members understand that what they do right this minute can affect the health of patients and the trust of the client or pet parent. That’s very clear,” she added. “What they don’t always realize is that what they do – or what they do with others in the practice – has a direct impact on how the practice performs down the road. Accreditation makes that crystal clear.”

Organizational Alignment

Though little studied in the veterinary profession, organizational alignment is critically important to large companies, particularly those with shareholders. That’s because alignment is directly tied to financial performance. Many practices have incentive programs so that financial performance is often directly tied to organizational alignment.

According to a study by human resources consultancy Watson Wyatt Worldwide, the three-year total returns to shareholders are significantly higher at companies in which employees clearly understand the link between their job responsibilities and the objectives of the organization.

The bottom line: The healthier a veterinary practice is, the better care it can provide to pets. Developing the practice team is a key component to enhancing practice health. AAHA accreditation is one important means to strengthening both the practice and its staff.

The NAVC Clinician's Brief is the official publication of the North American Veterinary Conference, a monthly veterinary digest designed to help practitioners keep up with the latest scientific developments, best practices and clinical trends. AAHA members can now subscribe to the NAVC Clinician’s Brief at a reduced rate. U.S. members are eligible for a free print subscription and a reduced rate for online archive access. Canadian members can receive free online archive access and a reduced rate on the print subscription.