How to integrate a veterinary assistant into the health care team

A recent AVMA webinar led by Janet McConnell, a certified veterinary technician, focused on how to integrate a veterinary assistant into a veterinary health care team.

McConnell, the director of veterinary nursing development at Compassion-First Pet Hospitals, said during the session that bringing in veterinary assistants can increase veterinary technician longevity, create a built-in talent pipeline, boost team efficiency, and provide better-quality care for patients.

Veterinary assistants can help the veterinarians on the team but primarily provide assistance to the veterinary technicians, freeing them up for other duties. A veterinary assistant, for example, can be relied on for tasks such as helping clients understand their pets' teeth, helping to fill prescriptions, handling an animal during procedures, and keeping examination rooms cleaned and prepped.

The underlying message of the webinar was that veterinary assistants can and should be included in health care teams.

The National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America sees a need for veterinary assistants and has been working to promote the job as a steppingstone into the veterinary profession.

"NAVTA firmly believes that veterinary assistants are vital members of the veterinary health care team. You need to have that assistance in your clinic, just like you need to have veterinary technicians," said Dennis Lopez, licensed veterinary technician and director of the veterinary technology program at Pima Medical Institute. Lopez is also a former NAVTA president and the current chair of the NAVTA Approved Veterinary Assistant Committee.

He continued, "There's a ton of research that shows that if a clinic has a staff of credentialed veterinary technicians and a staff of veterinary assistants, the whole clinic runs more efficiently, it is more profitable, and the doctors of veterinary medicine can do what they should be doing, which is diagnosing, surgery, and finding out what's wrong with an animal."

NAVTA created the Approved Veterinary Assistant Program in 2010 to provide schools with guidelines for curriculum and required skills upon graduation. Programs must include 150 hours of academic training plus 100 hours of clinical experience.

"Originally, we formed the committee because we were concerned about all the veterinary assistant schools that were purporting to teach people about the position. A lot of the schools were confusing the position of veterinary assistant and a credentialed veterinary technician," Lopez said. "And so, NAVTA thought, being the voice of veterinary technicians in America, that perhaps we should do something to lessen the confusion between the two positions and start a process where we go around and approve veterinary assistant programs that are teaching the right level of schooling for veterinary assistants—and try to maintain the delineation between the two positions."

NAVTA is not an accrediting body, but the organization lists veterinary assistant programs that meet its requirements on its website, available at jav.ma/AssistantPrograms.

"What we're looking for in these programs is that the students are receiving a good, well-rounded, basic, and foundational education, which means they would be set up to then work in a veterinary clinic at that entry-level veterinary assistant position," Lopez said.

Students who graduate from a NAVTA-approved program and complete the Approved Veterinary Assistant Examination receive a certificate and the designation of approved veterinary assistant. Currently, there are four online programs, 21 high school campus programs, and 23 community college programs that meet NAVTA's policy.

During the AVMA webinar, McConnell suggested the following tips when bringing a veterinary assistant onto a team:

• Educate the team about the essential skills of a veterinary assistant.
• Write clear and concise job descriptions that delegate appropriate tasks to team members.
• Consider implementing different scrub colors to establish roles, and put each designation on the scrubs.
• Make sure the onboarding process is simple and includes clear and concise delegation of duties.
• Work on developing a mentoring culture within the team.
• Inform clients of the differences in job duties between a veterinary assistant and a veterinary technician.

NAVTA also recently released a guide that includes a video and a workbook with exercises on how to build a successful veterinary health care team. The resources focus on building a team, finding career satisfaction, and delivering care in a team-centered, profitable way. More information and the guide are available at jav.ma/Team.

Related JAVMA content:

Veterinary leaders concentrate on technician underutilization (March 1, 2019)

What's in a name? (Nov. 15, 2018)