Implementing a successful senior/geriatric health care program for veterinarians, veterinary technicians, and office managers

Senior health care, geriatric health care, senior wellness, geriatric wellness, and senior care are all terms for specific health care programs that are designed to improve the routine veterinary health care of older dogs and cats. While the veterinary profession may not agree on what to call the program, what age to start the program, what diagnostics evaluations to include in the program, or even how often per year the patient should be evaluated, we are all in agreement that the program should significantly increase the older patient's quality of life and their longevity.

In the early 1990s, the concept of a geriatric wellness and geriatric health care program was being considered in veterinary teaching hospitals. Veterinarians were doing a good job of managing age-related diseases once they were made aware of the patient's problem(s). However, in general neither the veterinarians nor the owners were aggressively “looking” for subclinical or early problems.

“Senior Care” exploded in the mid 1990s when Pfizer Animal Health implemented the national marketing concept of Senior Care. In essence, their Senior Care model was the newly emerging geriatric health care program but was also a set of marketing tools and education client brochures that dovetailed with their new senior-specific line of products. In the past 2 decades, senior/geriatric health care programs evolved as the recognized platform for healthy old pet evaluations, preanesthetic protocols, and approach to testing clinically ill animals and chronic drug monitoring protocols.

Authors: William D. Fortney

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/