QUARTERLY BEAT
OCTOBER 2026
a small space at the bottom for the clinician's personalized notes. The bones stay consistent. The voice stays human.
BLOG HIGHLIGHTS
The AAHA 2023 Technician Utilization Guidelines lay this out in Table 5.2 , "Standardized Workflow for Optimal Utilization," which identifies where protocols can systematize repetitive, high-volume work: triage calls, follow-up calls for surgical cases and recent hospitalizations, nutritional and behavioral consults, and preapproved diagnostics. The same logic applies directly to discharge. A 2025 study by Rohlf, et al. at La Trobe University found that transparent, client-centered communication was one of the strongest predictors of client satisfaction in veterinary practice, even after accounting for the seriousness of the presenting issue (Rohlf et al., Vet Sci. 2025). Standardized discharge instructions are transparency in action. Try this week: Pick your three highest-volume procedures. Write a standardized discharge template for each. Load them into your PIMS and assign one person to own updates. 2. Pre-Prepare Your Discharge Materials In human medicine, discharge includes a packet. Medication schedule. Activity restrictions. Red-flag signs. A clear phone number for "call us if." In veterinary medicine, discharge often comes with whatever the technician can pull together while the client is already at the front desk asking about parking validation. The bottleneck is almost never the conversation. It is the prep. Prescriptions are not filled. Invoices are not finalized. Go-home kits are not assembled. Handouts are not printed. Every one of those gaps is paid for in client waiting time and team stress. The 2023 "State of Emergency and Specialty Veterinary Care" report from Instinct Science found meaningful adoption of supportive technology in ER and specialty hospitals: 38% added digital treatment sheets, 36% moved to cloud-based PIMS/EMR, and 32% adopted client communication platforms in the prior year, with 75% of staff reporting positive improvements from the new tech. In a 2024 Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine study, Flegel, et al. tested how well clients of a neurological referral center could recall the information given to them at discharge. The answer was: only partially. Clients consistently could not reproduce key portions of what they were told. The authors recommended that important instructions be specifically emphasized, which is exactly what pre-prepared, pre-tested materials make possible. Try this week: Build a discharge kit checklist for each common procedure. Include prescriptions, invoices, supplies, handouts, and QR codes linking to short recovery videos. Pre-load everything so the final 10 minutes are "review and hand off," not "assemble from scratch."
DISCHARGE IS THE LAST WORD:
The first time I really understood discharge, I was not wearing scrubs. I sat in a vinyl chair next to my mom's hospital bed, watching a nurse rip through a stack of papers and a medication list at warp speed while my mom nodded politely and remembered almost none of it. She had been admitted three times in quick succession. By the third discharge, I had a notebook, a color-coded pill chart, and a running list of every instruction that contradicted the previous one. I also had a humbling new appreciation for what our clients face every day in our hospitals. Discharge is the final word. It is the moment that determines whether a patient recovers as planned, whether a client trusts us enough to return, and whether our team has a peaceful evening or a phone tree full of "quick questions." Done well, it improves compliance, reduces callbacks, and leaves clients feeling cared for even when outcomes are difficult. Done poorly, it undermines much of the excellent medicine we provide. What if one of the most important workflow improvements in your hospital happens at the very end of the visit? In this VETgirl article, Dr. Natalie Marks, CVJ, takes a practical look at the discharge process and five ways veterinary teams can make it clearer, more consistent, and less stressful for both clients and staff. FIVE WORKFLOW FIXES YOUR HOSPITAL WILL ACTUALLY FEEL Natalie L. Marks , DVM, CVJ Marks DVM Consulting
The good news is that discharge is one of the most fixable parts of our day. Here are five workflow shifts, grounded in recent research, that any practice can begin testing this month.
1. Standardize Your Discharge Protocols
Most discharge inconsistencies do not stem from bad clinicians. They stem from the fact that every clinician writes instructions from scratch, in real time, at the end of a long day. That is a recipe for missed details, mixed messaging among doctors, and exhausted technicians trying to translate five different communication styles into one client conversation. Standardization is the solution. Build a core template for each common procedure (spay/neuter, dental, GI workup, chronic disease starts, orthopedic recovery) and leave
3. Assign Someone (or Some Time) to Own Discharge
Discharge falls apart when it is everyone's job and no one's job. When it gets squeezed in between appointments, dropped on whichever technician happens to be free, or rushed because a doctor needs the exam room back, it stops being a care moment and becomes a transaction. The Instinct Science 2023 report points in a related direction: hospitals that invested in workflow tools and clearer team structures saw better retention and morale, and technology adoption alone was linked to 10 to
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