INDUSTRY PULSE

The outbreak of COVID-19 is forcing many practices to rapidly rethink how they communicate with clients. Driven by concerns for humans and pets alike, best practices are evolving in real time, creating an opportunity to learn from one another.

The nature of the VitusVet™ communications platform allows us to see trends and gain insights from thousands of practice users and millions of pet owners across the country in real time. We are committed to sharing those COVID-19 responses here as a way to build a centralized resource that can help us all better support pet health.

This tracker will be updated weekly Mondays at 9am ET.

Texting Volume Has Increased To Over 400% Above Average

We are seeing a dramatic increase in the number of texts shared between pet owners and practice partners. We believe this could partly be attributed to the high number of practices that have implemented curbside check-in and drop-off services to promote social distancing and reduce the number of people at the front desk. It could also reflect the growing number of practices and clients relying on remote communications to share updates and test results and more.

The Volume Of Digital Refill Requests Is Trending Up

The digital refill request volume has been consistently above 2019 levels since the start of the COVID-19 event. While week to week volume is still volatile there is a clear trend of year over year increase.

Appointment Scheduling Has Increased Above Pre-COVID-19 Levels

Digital Medical Record Sharing Has Rebounding

Pet owners use apps to request and share digital pet medical records to providers such as emergency veterinarians, groomers, daycare, boarding, walkers, sitters, and more. Digital medical record sharing is now at the pre-COVID-19 average.

Methodology

Charts showing a percent change vs. Average used data compiled from the prior 52 weeks. Data compiled for the week of March 15-21, 2020 is considered an outlier and was removed from the Average. The percent increase/decrease for each week was then calculated by using the average calculated as V1, while the weekly number was used as the V2 Value. For example, if the average for a metric was 50, and in a given week the number for that week was 75, then the math would have been (75 – 50) / 50 * 100 = 50%.

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Resources:

VitusVet has compiled a list of information and resources below that highlight the most recent information available related to COVID-19, and what clinics and pet owners can do to help manage their animals.