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As a Practice Manager, it often is brought to my attention when the nurse’s or vet’s time-honoured ways of treating, preventing or managing different conditions no longer stack up with the latest research and need to be updated.
While I often spot when things are less than ideal, it is everyone’s responsibility to ensure that we aren’t doing things just because we always have, but are focusing on making sure we are continuously improving when new evidence and research is available to us.
Now how does this relate to nutrition? Well, I think anyone who is familiar with my blog posts knows exactly where I’m going with this! There are many practices that I see clinics still doing that not only are outdated but are potentially damaging to our patients. One is feeding chicken and rice to compromised patients (Why I don’t recommend chicken and rice (and you shouldn’t either!).
So often I have nurses or vets reaching out to me, tearing their hair out, trying to communicate with their management or team to get them to change their ways and improve their recommendations in practice. But it’s not so difficult – here are some simple steps to follow to build a new protocol for your practice and pitch it to your team!
You’ve likely identified or encountered a problem and want to change things for the better. Focus on that one thing you’d like to change, and study it. If you’re not sure where to start, consider what the most common conditions you see in practice are, and what your current recommendations are. From here, focus your attention on one of those things you think could be improved in your approach to nutritional management.
Tips to get started:
Now it’s time to collect some statistics! This sounds boring but is actually really important to support the change you want to make. Sometimes this is called an audit but essentially you want to collect some information on cases; we want to be able to compare the current protocol to our proposed new protocol.
One method of doing this is collecting cases of the same condition – for example, diarrhea – and then using the old protocol (ie. Chicken and rice) for a subset of those cases, and the new protocol (ie. Probiotics and GI food) with another subset. You may also use this phase to ask your team what outcomes they’ve seen and any stumbling blocks they may have when trialling or implementing the new protocols.
Tips to get started:
Now that you have the data and the cases to support your change, you need to think about the alternative protocol you want to implement. Like with training a dog, you don’t punish the bad behaviour – instead, you reinforce the preferred behaviour, giving them an alternative choice. It’s harder to stop doing something altogether, it’s easier to instead offer a replacement that still solves the problem and has a better outcome than the original choice.
Some tips to get started:
You now need to present this information to your team and/or management. Change is hard! Be prepared for any potential pushback and try to anticipate any concerns or reservations they may have about changing. Bring with you all your research, data collection and any results of trials you’ve conducted. Present the information in an easy-to-understand format.
Some ideas for presenting:
So there you have it! Some pointers on how to get started in pitching a new nutrition protocol in your practice and changing outdated treatments.
Did this post give you ideas? What will you change in your clinic? Leave a comment below!
This blog post first appeared on the Nutrition RVN Blog on 12 November 2021: Improving nutrition protocols in your practice and has been re-published with full permission
BAnVetBioSci, RVN, AVN Jessica graduated with her Bachelor of Animal and Veterinary Biosciences from La Trobe University in 2016 and went on to complete her Certificate IV in Veterinary Nursing in 2018. She became one of the first few AVNAT Registered Veterinary Nurses in 2019, and obtained Accreditation in 2020. She has worked in the veterinary industry since 2010 in every role from Animal Attendant all the way up to Practice Manager. Her passion for animal nutrition began as a child when the family cat suffered from a urinary obstruction, and his lifelong treatment was dietary change. Diet can literally be life-changing and serve as a medical treatment, which is what motivates Jessica to improve the lives of pets through diet and educate pet parents and professionals on the importance of nutrition as both medical treatment and preventative health care. Armed with this motivation to improve other pets’ lives, she has undertaken countless hours of continuing education in the area of animal nutrition and is always studying! In 2020, Jessica started her blog, NutritionRVN.com, to reach more pet parents and help them make informed choices and wade through the marketing when choosing the right food for their pet. She is...
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