Episode 20 – Enhancing Veterinary Efficiency: The Role of Online Solutions in Modern Practice

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In this week’s episode

• New Career Pathways and Opportunities in Veterinary Technology
  Exploring how technological advancements are creating diverse career options for vets, such as moving beyond traditional practice into tech-driven roles, showcases exciting possibilities in the field.
• Identifying Opportunities Through Practitioner Conversations and Data Insights:
  How engaging with veterinary practitioners and leveraging data analytics uncovers critical pain points and drives impactful solutions is highly engaging. It offers a unique look into the synergy between human feedback and technology-driven insights.
• Transformative Impact of Technology on Veterinary Practices
  Highlighting how technology like online booking, chat, and payment systems has revolutionised efficiency and enhanced both practitioner and client experiences makes this topic relatable and forward-thinking.
• The Future of Veterinary Medicine with AI and Pet Health Monitoring
  The prediction of integrating AI and advanced health-monitoring technologies to better manage pet health and meet evolving pet owner expectations offers a compelling glimpse into the future of veterinary care.

Tune in to Julien Renard, Julien Poublon and Jack Peploe to explore how practitioner insights, transformative technology, and future innovations like AI are reshaping veterinary practices and unlocking new career opportunities!

Transcription

Jack Peploe:

Coming up on modern veterinary practice,

Julien Renard:

I think that anything which is repetitive and admin related, there is a strong opportunity for technology to deliver value there. In practice, we want as many staff as possible to focus on looking after clients and thinking patients.

Jack Peploe:

Welcome to the Modern Veterinary Practice Podcast. I’m your host and veterinary IT expert, Jack Peploe. In this episode, I’ll be welcoming Julian Poublon and Julian Renard to the podcast who’ll talk to us about their journey from practicing veterinarians to tech entrepreneurs, we’ll explore how they founded Vetstoria, an innovative online booking system that has transformed veterinary practices worldwide and discussed the intersection of technology and veterinary care.

Julien Poublon:

My name is Julian Poublon (JP). I am French in origin. My background is to be a vet and back in 2006, 18 years ago, I was a co-founder of a Vetstoria. And ever since that’s what has, I guess, constituted my own life and from part of what we talk today I guess.

Julien Renard:

And I’m Julien Renard (JR), I met JP actually on the first day of our uni time, so that was before 2006. It was 96 actually. So qualified from the vet school in Belgium. Did work as a vet for several years initially as a also vet and then moved to the uk, was work as an emergency vet. Sorry, I slept a couple of nights on JP’s sofa initially, when I moved to the UK and founded Vetstoria I think pretty quickly after I arrived in the uk. And yes, 2006 was the start of Vetstoria.

Jack Peploe:

Well guys, it makes you so much easier. JP and JR, thank you so much for coming on the Modern Veterinary Practice Podcast. Great to have you on board. How are you both doing today? Very well, thanks.

Julien Renard:

Very well.

Jack Peploe:

Good. So today we’re going to be delving into how technology can transform traditional veterinary practices into more streamlined and efficient operations. Now both of you have transitioned from practicing veterinary medicine to creating a tech solution, which I think is really cool. Specifically for vets, can we explore the fascinating intersection of technology and veterinary care? Are you up for that? Oh, for sure. Awesome. So starting from the beginning, could you share with us what sparked your interest in technology and how you both decided to develop an online booking system for vets?

Julien Poublon:

Well, I think that both Julian and I always had a deep interest in technology and nowadays in practice I think we were looking for where technology could help the practitioner and the solution that we developed today is not something that was the initial idea. We went through a path that led us to what we are doing today, but certainly, as far as I’m concerned, I wanted to work in technology. That was a passion of mine. Maybe JR’s path was a bit different.

Julien Renard:

Yeah, I mean one thing I can add to what JP just said is we have not started by doing an online booking system. We did a couple of JP saying it was a path, but one thing which led where we are to build is the fact that all customers told us that they wanted what we are doing today. We actually built initially, funny enough, it was an online pharmacy. Very quickly JP and I realised that e-commerce and selling mitigation was not or forced, they were not super interested by this, but I guess it was the first step to the journey understanding that in order to do as a vet, if you want to do technology, you need to bring the people that know technology to build something meaningful. I guess that was step one and step two, we actually built an application. At that time there was an app, there was a few apps in the US starting and we started doing this.

Now the issue we had is there was not many PMS providers or practice manage software who had API that could enable functionality of this application. So it was really hard to build an impactful product of the lack of API availability on the market or whether one of our PI’s partner at that time was actually, I mean he had quite a lot of requests to build or to build from his customer. He had quite a lot of requests from his customer to build an online booking system and the capacity on this side was not there, neither the skills. And we just asked whether or not we would be keen to do it and that’s how it started. Now, at that time we had the application that was there plus the online booking and very quickly we had so much more traction on the online booking system and in order to build, I would say a very robust and impactful booking system, we realised that we had to put a lot of focus on that and that’s why we decided to retire the application and fully focus one entire team on building an online booking system that could really bring the business to the next level.

Jack Peploe:

So it’s interesting you referenced that. Obviously one of the challenges was obviously the lack of APIs with a number of the different systems. What were some of the other major hurdles that you faced in developing a system? And I’m sure that the API challenge is probably still a challenge today, especially given the number of PMS or PIM solutions out there currently.

Julien Poublon:

Our main challenge was that we were the founders of the business and at that time I guess we didn’t have a technology partner and that really was along with the right idea with the transformation in the business. I think somebody super talented whom we met at Canterbury University and just obtained his PhD and somehow decided he wanted to work with us, which was a little bit of a many of his friends thought was a bit silly at the time. But yeah, we’re still working together. Incidentally had the pleasure of spending the weekend last weekend with him and his name is [-], originates from in Sri Lanka. And for me it was the real transformation in the business, having a solid technology partner that could impress PIMS (PMS) and give them a way to partner with us.

Jack Peploe:

Very cool. Very lucky, I would say

Julien Renard:

Required to succeed in business a lot underestimated.

Jack Peploe:

So if we could jump into practice now, because obviously something you both had experience with from your experience in the different roles within veterinary practice, what are some of the most kind of persistent challenges that you feel that technology might help address, even if it’s not necessarily directly related to that story or associated systems that you work with?

Julien Renard:

I think that, well, alright, I think that anything which is repetitive and admin related, there is a strong opportunity for technology to deliver value there. In practice, we want as many staff as possible to focus on looking after clients and thinking patients, all the related task, all the associated tasks to this, which are really admin. If they can be handled by software, this is a win because we want all the very valuable and skilled people to spend their time with the patient and the clients.

Jack Peploe:

And how do you guys identify these types of opportunities to make the veterinary professionals life easier? Well, what is it that you do? How do you go out and find these opportunities?

Julien Poublon:

So first of all, we talk to a tonne of veterinary practitioners on a daily basis about our products, but we also get a chance to chat with them about a variety of other aspects like we did before. These postcards, you talk about one thing on the other and you get to know their pains and their problems. So that’s one way a lot of people on the ground talking to customers. And the other way of course see research looking at what’s around. There’s a lot of people and I guess you might be one of them, Jack, that knows that also talks to people and well, your question’s interesting. I think I was reading only sort of yesterday evening that there’s a number of pain points in a vet practice and the top of that is right now in the US at least seems to be trying to improve the flow in the practice and how technology can improve that. So yeah, various ways. I mean Julian, do you get information in a different way?

Julien Renard:

Sure. Well, no, that I agree with what was said. I would add that we have product KPI and usage of the software we have today are extremely important is a bit different between building a software and building a software that would be used and be impactful. And we did build, and I think pretty much all tech entrepreneur have built software that have not been used or parts of the software that have not been used can have the best idea in the world execution and making sure that it fits with the need of user. It’s challenging. And for us now we have the capabilities that was not there initially to really understand through data what user are doing. And that’s for me extremely important. That’s really the final result is that I want to really see the usage, I want to see the impact through the data and sure looking to customer is extremely important, but the data is there to confirm the conversation we have because the conversation, you can only have as many conversation as you want. I mean the vest story now is close to 7,000 clinic. We are trying to speak with as many users as possible, but to really scale the impact across these thousand of clinics, it’s close to impossible, but the data allows us to do that.

Jack Peploe:

No, that’s cool. And if we can focus on one particular component then, if you guys could give me each one unique one, but what are some of the key management practices that every veterinary practice owner or manager should consider improving efficiency and staff wellbeing in your perspectives?

Julien Poublon:

What do you mean exactly, Jack?

Jack Peploe:

What is one thing that you think that a practice should and could implement quite easily that is not, I suppose that common now that could make a massive difference to how they work as a practice, but also how their team might respond could be tough not to be biassed here.

Julien Poublon:

I think they should have an online booking system. I think they should have a chat. I think they should have online payments and try to leverage the technology that’s available, which people have sort of developed for them. And yeah, I don’t think that as a veteran practitioner, just if you go to a trade show, okay, look around and people will propose solutions to you. There’s different available and suddenly we think that we deliver things that are extremely helpful to practice. I’m convinced of that.

Julien Renard:

Sorry, I was just going to ask, I mean we started Vetstoria a long time ago and initially when we put online looking out there, nobody was doing it. And I remember some really tough conversation JP and I on with our small booth at the London virtual, I think three quarter of the people, I mean three quarter maybe even more thought that we were completely out of our mind because it’s true. I remember very well. I mean just like guys, this is just not going to work in the vet industry because it scheduling is complicated, blah blah, blah. And sure, okay. My point is that sometimes it’s not that obvious how technology can be impactful to the people which are doing the day-to-day work in the practice. And that’s fair enough. So it’s our job to come propose a solution like this and being smart enough to listen to all the feedback we are getting. We saw that we had a few brilliant idea that actually ended up not being successful. Others might be, but carefully listening to the pain on implementing the solution that will suit the need of customer. Super, super important.

Jack Peploe:

No, a hundred percent. And I mean you must get quite a few people that would challenge your solution. And I know one of the biggest things that I hear from speaking to clients if we just pick on the online book and get a functionality is the lack of control. How would you normally respond to someone that just really pushes back and goes, look, I just don’t like it because I’m losing control of my diary.

Julien Poublon:

So I guess that’s a question for me, right? I look after the implementation Jack, so you are absolutely spot on. That’s the main worry of our clients and even beyond, let’s say they’ve been convinced by the sales pitch, they’re now coming to me to be implemented. How do they keep control? Well, I guess you need to have a product that is sophisticated enough to provide that very simply. So the software will provide the control through carefully designed tools, which means that we take the pattern on the journey where depending on the choices, again their requirements, there’s going to be different offerings to them and sort of careful explanations around what they’re picking and also some warning messages, et cetera to make sure that they are picking the right choice for them. I would say the main problem we might get would be people that are so worried about losing control that they don’t fully utilise the software. And for example, we’d say, okay, we’ll start with just vaccination no sick pets. And that is a problem because well a pet owners don’t necessarily understand that and then they actually book a sick bet as a vaccination. But if people follow our advice, set up the system as it should be, it works.

Jack Peploe:

Nice. Cool. So okay, I now want to kind of look forwards a little bit and I want to pick on two areas. One is how do you think that the rise of technology in veterinary medicine has changed the career landscape for new vets that are entering the field

Julien Poublon:

Very simply, new opportunities, I guess. I think that certainly for me, when I was a veterinary practitioner, I was very happy when we created the business. I was about to launch my own clinic, but technology is an interesting path. Okay, something different. And after years in practice, it was good to do something different. And I can see that there’s a lot of job offerings and different companies like our own popping up everywhere and giving opportunities to people that maybe want something a bit different. So that’s good. Okay, that’s an opportunity.

Julien Renard:

Jack, I might have missed your question. What you’re saying is that what is the impact of technology on the query of veterinary on vets working in the Baptist? Is that correct?

Jack Peploe:

Yeah, yeah. No, so I mean to be fair, JP’s point’s interesting. It is quite right. It is an opportunity, but yes, specifically to veterinary medicine. So rather than I suppose, because some could argue and go, well actually you know what, that’s taking resource from the veterinary field even though it’s giving opportunity that might be more relevant to that path person. But specifically, yeah, I mean if you’ve got an example of how it is impacting veterinary medicine, so their career in natural veterinary medicine,

Julien Renard:

Well to me is back to what I was saying earlier is the fact when you have to do less admin stuff, you can spend more time being a vet and looking after clients and patients. That’s to me what is critical. Now there’s also other way to interact with customer. You can do telemedicine, blah, blah, blah, working from home, all these things are important definitely there. But for me it’s more time with clients and patients doing what you enjoy. Well this is why you start with school. Most of the people start vet school to go and look after patient clients, I guess is not part of the initial consideration, but it has to be the case. But most of the people starting vet school don’t say, look, I’m going to maybe work in technology. So

Jack Peploe:

That No, that’s very cool. And I mean if we look forward now, where do you see the field of new medicine heading in the next decade? Especially with the advances of technology, with AI being thrown around all over the place, as well as obviously the mass changes in pet odour expectations, what do you see happening in the next decade?

Julien Poublon:

So I think some of the exciting developments in technology will be around that may be some of the most exciting one as far as I’m concerned, would be the one to be on pet health itself, the way maybe we might manage diabetes a bit differently, monitor a variety of parameters of the pet health and whether we’ll be able to the technology sector, I mean include the pet health data coming from those apparatus into communication tools with the pet owners that I think might be sort of very exciting prospect for the future. Should we propose an appointment for a pet based on data coming Fitbit?

Jack Peploe:

I think that’d be very cool. And this is where I get a little bit carried away, so I’ll be quiet for the moment. But yeah, I’m very much on your page on that one.

Julien Renard:

Look, I missed quite a bit of what GP said because my connection was a bit loose for a couple of minutes. To me, what I would say is diagnosis, support, technology to support diagnosis. I remember being stuck in front of X-rays and things like this. Your stuck in the middle of the night with a dog with some breathing difficulties. I guess technology that could support that support diagnosis is something which is super interesting to me.

Jack Peploe:

No, absolutely, a hundred percent. Well look guys, thank you so much for your time today. I really, really appreciate it. Obviously some very inspiring and interesting thoughts and concepts there. And like I say, I’m completely aligned with your visions of where you think it’s going and I keep my fingers crossed because I think it’d be extremely exciting times if we do go that way. But again, thank you so much for your time today. Before we do sort of close off this interview, if people want to get in touch with you, how can they go about doing that? Best way to reach

Julien Poublon:

Best way to reach me would be from LinkedIn, just I’ll accept all requests and I’ll reply to messages.

Julien Renard:

Same channel from me and lots of gigantic social media user, but I am on LinkedIn.

Jack Peploe:

Cool. No, and we will put that in the show notes on the website as well. So please do check those out if you do want to reach out with one of these guys. But again guys, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time. Thank you Jack.

Julien Renard:

Thank you.

Jack Peploe:

Pause for Laughs. Each episode we add a touch of humour by asking our guests to share their most amusing and unforgettable animal related mishaps or bloopers. This time we have Molly Fiander who takes us back to one of her most memorable veterinary adventures. Molly recounts the hilarious tale of a cat with a peculiar problem that led to an unexpected and messy surprise for the vet.

Molly Fiander:

So I hope no one is eating dinner, but basically a few years ago, and it was pre covid, so that was really important to know. No one had to wear masks. I was basically, I was called into a consult by vet with a cat that was continuously licking their rear end really, really lovely cat, but very, very nervous. So heavy restraint things were just not going to work. So what we decided to do was just shimmy the bar off the table and then the vet was able to bend down, lift up the tail, and have a look at the area with just minimal restraint. So happy chatting away. I was just holding this cat in like a sitting position, happy chatting away to the owner and this poor vet who luckily was wearing glasses bent down, lifted up this tail, and honestly this volcano came out.

And she was literally, her whole face was covered and you just heard this pooft on her face and she literally stood up and I was absolutely in hysterics. The owner was mortified. She ran out of the console room, went threw up and cleaned her face. But the best thing was the cat felt so much better. She’s like, why did her tan? She was well happy. So she just went home with some probiotics and we never saw her again. But I literally, I can’t get her out of my head. When the vet came up and I just looked at her and she had what all over her face, absolutely everything forever I found hilarious.

Jack Peploe:

Coming up next week, we welcome Olly King, a veterinary leadership coach and founder of the Meraki Initiative. Ollie shares his journey from practicing as an equine veterinarian to becoming a change maker in the veterinary profession. We delve into his motivations for establishing his innovative approaches to enhancing workplace culture and his vision for helping veterinary practices attract and retain the right talent. Tune in to hear Olly’s insights on creating fulfilling career paths and fostering positive work environments in the veterinary field.

Olly King:

People want to matter, and I think that need and the pressure of work is where people are coming to work and they’re wanting to seek even more greater fulfilment and purpose, almost like an accentuated and vocational professions. When that, again, dangerous expectation or when that is not being met, then it quickly creates a bit of a us and them. And as I say, not quite disengagement, but a bit of a, nah, I’m not really engaged, I’m not disengaged. And that’s when people start looking elsewhere, they start wobbling and that’s when I think there’s a real hidden cost, which is phenomenally hard to measure in terms of business. Bottom line.

Jack Peploe:

That’s it for this episode. All links and recommendations we talked about are in the show notes. Don’t forget to subscribe and share the podcast if you found it useful. In the meantime, thanks for listening and see you next time.