Recipient Organization
SANDHILLS VETERINARY CLINIC, P.C.
15 N HIGHWAY 61
ARTHUR,NE 69121
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Sandhills Veterinary Clinic (SVC) is located in Arthur, Nebraska situated in the middle of the Nebraska Shortage Region NE242. This shortage area encompasses five Nebraska beef producing counties (Arthur, Garden, Keith, Grant and McPherson). These five counties cover approximately 5,100 square miles and contain 220,000 cattle and calves. Without sufficient veterinary servicesto this area, animal welfare, health anddisease surveillance will be directly impacted. Another area that will be directly affected would be the veterinarian to food animal ratio. Our goals for the Rural Practice Enhancement Award aim to assist in improving overall animal welfare, maintaining the health of animals that contribute to an abundant, wholesome food supply and improving the veterinarian to food animal ratio. The objectives to help SVC reach these goals are to purchase specific equipment to help ensure veterinary services are available to clientele while also making the practice more attractive to veterinarians seeking employment. Equipment such as a new hydraulic chute, 4x4 pickup outfitted with a mobile veterinary box, a reproductive ultrasound for pregnancy diagnosis, autoclave for sterilization of veterinary instruments and the purchase of a blood work machine for in-house lab work would each help meet the goals of this program. They would aid in increasing efficiency while making the SVC more appealing to prospective veterinarians. The opportunities offered through the Veterinary Services Grant Program will directly assist the Sandhills Veterinary Clinic in meeting the goals outlined and help mitigate veterinary shortages in our rural communities.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The overall goals of this Rural Practice Enhancement Award for the Sandhills Veterinary Clinic,are to continue to improve overall animal welfare, maintain the health of bovine cattle that contribute to an abundant wholesome food supply and to increase the veterinarian to food animal ratio of the Nebraska shortage region of NE242. By setting these goals we are striving to develop, implement and sustain food animal veterinary services and relieve veterinarian shortage situations. To reach these goals our objectives include purchasing equipment to help ensure veterinary services are available to clientele while also making the practice more attractive to veterinarians seeking employment. The purchased equipment would also provide safety for animals, doctors, staff, and clients. The proposed list of equipment includes replacing a 1960s model manual cattle chute with a new hydraulic chute, purchasing a new/used 4x4 pickup outfitted with a mobile veterinary box, adding a "hands free" Repro-Scan reproductive ultrasound for pregnancy diagnosis, acquiring an autoclave for sterilization of veterinary instruments and the purchase of an Abaxis iSTAT Alinity blood work machine for in-house diagnostics. This equipment provides the means to achieve our goals.
Project Methods
The proposed equipment upgrades for Sandhills Veterinary Clinic will be instrumental in maintaining and improving animal welfare through delivery of safe and timely care. It will help improve the veterinarian to food animal ratio by contributing to new practitioner recruitment for the Clinic. Animal health and welfare are directly related to an abundant and wholesome food supply. It is our duty as veterinarians in a rural community to help identify, track, and combat emerging animal diseases. We must also fulfill our obligation of providing regulatory services such as brucellosis vaccination, certificate of veterinary inspection, and providing oversight of prescribed drugs through valid VCPRs. A new in-house hydraulic chute will offer a new level of safety and care not provided by the fifty-year-old manual chute. The new chute will physically replace the old unit for the time being. It will offer the option of moving it to a new building dedicated to cattle work in the future (five-year goal). The hydraulic chute will provide better restraint to big bulls and large cows with the capability of head and neck restraint in addition to body control. These capabilities allow an improved comprehensive exam that is both safer and more efficient for our cattle patients. Communication with our clients via word of mouth and a written notice included in billing statements will help spread awareness of the ability to perform bovine exams and treatments at the veterinary clinic. This chute will provide greater convenience and safety to our clients and their animals. Our office software can track increased revenue generated due to the facility improvements as well as the increase in office calls. This allows us to quantify the man-hours saved that would have been spent traveling to individual ranches. This time savings could result in more efficient case management. It would allow seeing more cases per day, time available to spend on client communication and follow-up, and increased availability for emergency services. This savings also opens the chance to address managerial and ownership tasks during the work day resulting in better work-life balance for all veterinarians. The purchased practice truck with a vet box can be used upon arrival. The new truck will replace a sixteen-year-old vehicle with over 200,000 miles that is currently equipped with a ten-year-old vet box; both of which are showing significant wear and approaching the end of their reliable life span. A four-wheel drive vehicle is crucial in the sandhills due to the type of rural roads and adverse weather conditions commonly experienced in busy seasons. A newer vehicle will help decrease the chances of a breakdown while providing mobile service. With a large component of the practice being mobile, a vet box is critical to assure transport of supplies and anticipated equipment in a climate-controlled manner. Provided a new veterinarian can be hired during the grant time frame, retaining the old truck and vet box would provide three potential practice vehicles allowing the prospective associate to service clientele. This avoids a delay in attempting to acquire a practice vehicle for them. The acquisition of the autoclave would be put to use with sterilization of all surgical instruments and preparing field packs. Sandhills Veterinary Clinic provides surgical case management in the form of bovine cesareans, large animal emergency calls, and small animal spays and neuters. This equates to an average of 15 to 20 bovine cesareans per year, with an equal number of large animal emergency calls and approximately 60 small animal surgeries. It is imperative that our surgical instrument sterilization be modern and efficient. We strive to minimize surgical complications and provide excellent outcomes to our patients. Modernizing our autoclave would be helpful in continuing this high standard of practice. One of the key services requested by our clientele is bovine pregnancy diagnosis. The purchase of an additional ultrasound machine would immediately allow us to offer expanded services. Ultrasound based pregnancy diagnosis is the most accepted and efficient way of pregnancy-checking in the Sandhills region of Nebraska and client uptake of this service in our practice area is exceptionally high. It has become mandatory during peak season to visit multiple ranches in one day to meet the requests for our services. An ultrasound also allows the opportunity to benefit the client with increased information that can be collected at the time of pregnancy check, such as: fetal age, sex, twins, abnormal development, and allows an opportunity for client education. The addition of another ultrasound would provide two things. First, when a third veterinarian is added to the practice it would allow immediate work application. Secondly, if either current ultrasound was broken, between the two doctors it would allow zero down time. Repair delays during the fall can lead to weeks of wasted time before cows can be rescheduled for pregnancy diagnosis. Including the hands free option with this purchase decreases the repetitive motion shoulder injury commonly associated with rectal palpation which will prolong the longevity of practitioners. A hands free option has become extremely appealing to new graduates and experienced doctors due to its ease of use, efficiency, and safety. Buying the equipment to run blood work in-house will have an immediate impact for the doctors and clientele. The ability to conduct testing will be at our fingertips allowing quick results and decreasing the economic costs to our clientele. The capacity to process blood work will become an essential tool to help treat our sick patients. Instead of waiting several days on mail-out bloodwork, having quick results will give better guidance towards treatments and confirm diagnosis in real time. In-house blood analysis will decrease client costs as there will be no shipping or accession fees associated with diagnostic testing. The planned purchase is an ISTAT Alinity which has one time use cartridges that can be purchased in packs of ten. The maintenance and upkeep of this blood machine is minimal and will be set up on a regular bi yearly schedule keeping expenses low. These funds will help purchase new equipment that is valuable to Sandhills Veterinary Clinic. However, the larger impact may be how it will directly affect the ability to recruit another veterinarian to this rural area. Having the equipment proposed is highly sought after by both recent graduates and experienced veterinarians alike making recruitment of a new associate more likely. In addition to creating a competitive well-equipped practice, utilizing grant resources for these upgrades frees up resources that can be dedicated to an associate's salary allowing Sandhills Veterinary Clinic to put together a more appealing compensation package. Realizing the $125,000 might only be one year of compensation, it gives a new hire a huge start to supporting their position. This would allow them to experience the inevitable learning curve, necessary mentoring, and adapting to a new workplace without the added pressure of concerns about production goals and supporting their position in the initial employment period.