With the clinic phone ringing off the hook, staff taking care of patients and emergencies flying in the door, there may never seem to be enough time in your veterinarian practice. The good news is that there are more than just a few strategies to manage time which can help you take control of your time instead of it controlling you.

 

Choose Your Team Wisely

Most time management strategies seem to apply more to offices rather than clinics. In other words, ‘time wasters’ that occur in offices simply don’t exist in a vet clinic. The unexpected always seems to happen at a veterinarian practice, such as the emergency that comes in five minutes before the clinic closes and staff calling in sick when you need them the most. Time management essentials for veterinarian professionals will mean creating an effective, flexible team that will utilize your hours of work as efficiently as possible.

For most veterinarian professionals, the more you make attempts to get everything done, the less seems to get done. Real priorities get forgotten while unimportant tasks clog your rhythm of work.

 

High Priority Versus Low Priority

Traditional methods for prioritizing at the clinic involved classifying stuff into high priority and low priority. High priority involved bleeding patients and beeping indications. In contrast, low priority involved it’s not bleeding or beeping. High priority involved emergencies that will need prompt action. On the other hand, less urgent meant something could wait, such as a spay and neuter could wait until the splenic rupture is done. You can apply this to your clinic as well, and delegate every low priority case to your team while keep yourself free for urgent cases only.

 

Classify Each Case That Walks In The Door

When it comes to time management essentials for veterinary professionals, Instead of trying to attend quickly to every problem that walks in the door, classify every case. Use the Eisenhower Matrix to classify each patient into four quadrants. The Eisenhower Matrix classifies patients into Not Important or Important. Under Not important are the quadrants Delegate It or Delete It.

Under the Important classification is Do It or Plan It. Have every animal or pet owner fill up a form and indicate what their pet needs or what the symptoms are. Classify the patient into either Do It, Plan It, Delegate It or Delete It. Delegate non-urgent pet care to your staff. Delete means to refer the patient to a different veterinarian, if it is a service you don’t offer, such as Pet Hair Styling.

 

Hardest Task First

The hardest task is the task you dread doing. Do you hate admin work? Filing? Take the first half hour of every day and do this task first. If you have payroll coming up, then add up the staff hours a week before. Everyone has the task they prefer to put off, and this is actually the task you need to do the most.

When it comes to time management essentials for veterinary professionals, do what works for you and stick to that routine. Soon, you will have the most efficient vet clinic in town.

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