5 Essentials Every Modern Veterinary Practice Needs

You may have several choices for veterinary clinics in your area, and like doctors for humans, it’s important to find the best quality service you can. While knowing the qualifications and certifications of a veterinarian is essential to ensuring your pet is seen with the right expertise, it’s also important to know that your pet can receive the care it needs right within the clinic. This means that you want to find a clinic that has the right equipment and services ready to go. Here are just five basic things that every clinic needs to be able to give your pet the help it needs in an effective and timely manner.

A Lab

For many conditions, more than just a visual analysis is required to achieve a proper diagnosis. Samples of skin, fur, saliva, blood, and even feces and urine carry essential clues that need to be processed quickly in order to get accurate results. While many veterinary practices will send samples elsewhere to be tested for fungi and bacterial growths, a vet should be able to immediately test fecal matter on-site in order to test for parasites and other immediately-diagnosable conditions before samples lose their potency. When looking at vet services, ask what labwork they can offer on-site to ensure you can get prompt results.

Quarantine Areas

If your pet is dealing with a contagious disease or has a compromised immune system in need of treatment, a vet clinic with a quarantine area is one way to help ensure the safety of your animal. These areas are designed to keep infections, bacteria, and contagions contained so that they don’t spread to your pet or others. Such an area can minimize the health risks to your pet and possibly speed its recovery. These quarantine spaces should be removed from the common areas where people and patients often pass through. They should also be sanitized daily to kill any contaminants that could re-infect the quarantined animal. Be sure to ask about a vet clinic’s quarantining options and ask if they will allow you to view the space to ensure that it is clean and isolated.

Monitoring Systems

Modern monitors give vets a way to test animals for specific problems in ways that are not too invasive or uncomfortable for the animal. Just like testing humans, these monitors can quickly and easily read a variety of vitals for your pet and display them in data charts to be uploaded to your vet’s records. Some veterinary monitors are portable, and you can ask if your vet has access to one of these. A portable monitor can help your vet clinic make house calls for an animal that might be too sick to travel or a larger animal that needs treatment at home. If your vet is using outdated equipment to check the vitals of your pet, it might be time to look for more modernized services.

Sanitation

Quarantine rooms aren’t the only places in a veterinary clinic that need to be regularly sanitized. Just like in human clinics, examination tables should be set up in a way that they can be quickly and easily sanitized between patients. It’s also important that your vet is using non-toxic cleaning equipment won’t hurt your pet should they lick or sniff a still-drying place. Ask your local veterinary clinics what their sanitation methods are and what cleaning solutions they use and suggest.

Dental Sets

Your pets face many of the same risks to their teeth that you do. Periodontal disease is a major threat to dogs and cats and is a frequent killer. While periodontal disease can be easily treated and isn’t fatal by itself, it leads to kidney, liver, and heart diseases when left untreated. On top of that, it causes a great deal of pain to your pet when they eat, something they hide to prevent showing weakness. A complete set of veterinary dental instruments should have everything your vet might need to test an animal’s teeth for issues and extract or replace them as necessary. Your vet should also be able to provide a dental cleaning for your cat or dog, as well as suggest products for you to do it yourself at home on a regular basis.

Modern equipment can streamline a veterinary practice and make sure a clinic has the tools needed to treat a variety of animal ailments successfully. The list above contains just a few of the essentials you can look for when picking a vet that can take care of your pet. When comparing services, be sure to ask questions and do your research to ensure that your pet’s needs will be met as they arise.