King Animal Hospital is redefining animal care. Located in King City, Ontario, the newly opened 60,000 square-foot multidisciplinary referral and emergency hospital offers a full spectrum of diagnostics, specialty, and rehabilitation services, all under one roof.
We caught up with the King Animal Hospital team to learn more about how they use ezyVet to drive efficiency, strengthen communication, and develop deeper relationships with their referral hospitals.
Built for animals, inspired by human health
There are a lot of parallels between King Animal Hospital and human hospitals. That’s no accident. Spread across 50 acres and staffed by more than 150 veterinary professionals, the four-story facility was intentionally designed around the same principles present in the human healthcare sector.
“We shaped the facility around the human health hospital model,” explained King Animal Hospital CEO Tracy Jones. “We wanted to be able to have the owners come to one building, get the right diagnostics, see the right specialist, and then get the right rehab all under one roof. Just like if you or I were going to our local hospital; the same way that you would access services, we want to provide that for our patients.”
To deliver that level of care and service, King Animal Hospital required a practice management system that could keep pace with its volume of patients and highly varied caseload. The software needed to be cloud-based. It needed to offer a robust integration ecosystem. And, perhaps most importantly, it needed to facilitate strong continuity of care between King Animal Hospital and referring practices.
After thorough analysis and talking to the nearby University of Guelph (an avid ezyVet user and one of the world leaders in veterinary medicine and research), the King Animal Hospital team determined that ezyVet was the best option.
A carefully planned implementation ensured a smooth migration. The ezyVet implementation team, led by ezyVet Implementation Consultant Dakota Broach, worked closely with King Animal Hospital to assist with the technical setup and training, and configure the system to meet the hospital’s requirements.
“I can't talk enough about how wonderful our implementation team has been through this whole process,” said King Animal Hospital Client Relations Manager Daniela Gaudio. “Dakota and her team have been there from day one. We can ring her any time with any concerns that we have - she has really helped us see the potential with ezyVet.”
Robust communication between hospital, referring practices, and clients
As a large multidisciplinary facility with many different departments and services, effective communication within the hospital is critical. ezyVet’s memo system allows the King Animal Hospital team to maintain strong lines of communication regardless of where they’re physically located, while the Case Watchers feature enables staff to track specific cases and receive notifications - even if they’re not the one assigned to it.
Communication with referring practices is equally important. To that end, King Animal Hospital uses rVetLink, an IDEXX referral management solution that simplifies communication between special and emergency hospitals and referring veterinarians.
“Because we are a referral and emergency Hospital, we are constantly in contact with RDVMs. One of the ways that we communicate is through rVetLink. It’s been fantastic. There’s an ease with which we are able to communicate with referring vets about what’s been happening on our end with any treatments that we have started or need to continue,” said Daniela.
ezyVet’s integration with rVetLink enables the King Animal Hospital team to access patient information directly inside ezyVet. Image studies, reports, and diagnostics results are automatically shared with referring hospitals, resulting in a seamless referral communication experience for all parties.
“Our philosophy of care here at King Animal Hospital is that it's really a triangle between the patient, the owner, and the referring vet. And it takes all of them to really be able to deliver the right level of care at the right time. We don't want any hiccups between the transfer of the patient; between primary care, to us, and then back to primary care,” said Tracy.
ezyVet’s communication capabilities extend beyond internal operations to client-facing interactions. As Daniela explained, the team uses ezyVet’s automated communication tools to automatically send appointment reminders and other client communications based on pre-configured variables, which helps reduce no-show rates while enhancing the client experience.
“Automated reminders - that’s been huge. With ezyVet, we can schedule certain reminders to be sent out, so it takes away some of the challenges for the front office. Instead of thinking, ‘I've got to call this client’ or ‘I've got to remind them of their upcoming appointment,’ ezyVet does it all for us. It saves us a huge amount of hours,” said Daniela.
Technology strengthens hospital’s diagnostics workflows
King Animal Hospital is home to an array of complex diagnostic imaging equipment. Being able to provide quick, accurate diagnostics results ensures that referring veterinarians have the necessary information to make the right diagnoses and optimal treatment plans.
“We're diagnostics-focused because we know that's what our doctors want first and foremost,” said Tracy. “If they have access to the right level of diagnostics through IDEXX and the right level of diagnostics equipment - that gives them the data they need to make the right diagnosis and to create the right treatment plan. To do that as quickly and accurately as possible is, to me, what patient-centered care really is.”
ezyVet's fully embedded integration with IDEXX VetConnect PLUS provides a centralized platform for the wider IDEXX diagnostics ecosystem. All historical diagnostics data and trending blood graphs can be access directly inside ezyVet, allowing the King Animal Hospital team and referring veterinarians to access critical information without juggling multiple systems.
“Seeing how simple this software is to use is amazing,” said RVT Manager Mara Anderson. “It will save us all tons of time and effort. In terms of the simplicity, the straightforwardness - having all of your information in one place is amazing.”
To support its clinical workflows, King Animal Hospital utilizes Vet Radar, a dedicated patient care tool that extends from ezyVet. While ezyVet focuses on day-to-day practice management tasks, Vet Radar simplifies the management of hospitalized patients through customizable electronic treatment sheets, a powerful electronic whiteboard, anesthesia monitoring, and more.
Vet Radar’s deep integration with ezyVet also allows all billable products and services used in Vet Radar to be automatically captured and flow through to the client’s invoice in ezyVet, helping the team save time and minimizing the risk of missed charges.
“I think that billing is going to be way easier now because Vet Radar will automatically bill for us,” said Mara. “It’s going to take a ton of time and effort off of our RVTs. I also really like how Vet Radar bills all of our drugs. It records [all the drugs] that are used and automatically adds them to the bill. We don't ever have to go looking for where the errors occurred because it's all automatically billed for us.”
When the time comes for the client to pay the bill, ezyVet supports that process, too. King Animal Hospital uses Windcave, a payment processing system that integrates seamlessly with ezyVet, to remotely collect payments via text and email. According to Daniela, the integration has the potential to save the team more than 100 hours a week on payment collections alone!
“Our front office staff are really, really happy about [the Windcave integration],” said Daniela. “Let me tell you - they don't want to be on the phone chasing down people to pay their bills. With Windcave, we can send a remote payment to clients if they can’t physically be here in the hospital to make the payment. I would say that it saves us at least 10 hours each week per department. If we multiply that by 12 departments - it’s a pretty big number.”
Conclusion
Running a cutting-edge hospital requires cutting-edge technology. Adopting ezyVet has provided King Animal Hospital with the tools it needs to centralize its diagnostics services, communicate more effectively, and deliver the very best in referral and emergency veterinary care.
Want to see what ezyVet could do for your practice? Book a demo today to discover how ezyVet could help your clinic save time, drive revenue, and better serve your patients.