“As a large organization using the same practice management system, we can track quality assurance at a company level, and that’s definitely beneficial.”
IVC Evidensia, one of the world’s leading veterinary groups, was eager to transition all of its practices in Denmark to a cloud-based practice management system. Provet Cloud stood out for its willingness to work closely with IVC Evidensia to build features that would make a difference at all levels of the organization – along with the software solution’s commitment to continuous improvement.
IVC Evidensia is on a mission to be the world’s best veterinary group. What began in 2011 as a small group of clinics in the UK has grown into a network of clinics and hospitals in 19 countries, employing over 28,000 people, including 8,100 veterinarians, who care for more than 6.5 million animals.
A large part of what propels IVC Evidensia’s pursuit of clinical excellence is its commitment to its people. The group’s international veterinary medical board supports each country’s clinical board, helping to unify processes and quality standards across the organization – and allowing each practice to dedicate more of its focus on the needs of patients and clients.
According Anette Spohr (DVM, PhD), Country Medical Director in Denmark, a culture of teamwork is key to IVC Evidensia’s ability to innovate and move the veterinary profession forward. “I love that I can access a huge network of very experienced colleagues who share their knowledge and support research in our organization,” she says.
Anette oversees the group’s 11 clinics and hospitals in Denmark. Taking an important step toward greater innovation and sustainable care, she recently led the transition of all locations to a new practice management system.
A software that “can make our daily lives much better”
The partnership between IVC Evidensia and Provet Cloud goes back to 2017, beginning with moving all of the group’s practices in Sweden onto the cloud-based system. Soon it was agreed that they would transition practices in all of the Nordic countries to Provet Cloud within the next few years.
Hearing from her colleagues in Sweden that Provet Cloud was delivering great results, Anette became eager to bring the same solution to Denmark.
At the time, practices in Denmark had been operating on a server-based system that simply wasn’t capable of evolving along with IVC Evidensia’s growth. The provider had scaled back product development considerably, leading to performance issues.
By contrast, Anette says, “It was attractive to have a large development team behind Provet Cloud – so that if we come up with good ideas for improvements, there’s a real chance that it will result in a new functionality.”
A software provider committed to continuous improvement shows an understanding of how the veterinary industry is evolving, she says. “Our daily life changes all the time in our profession, and I think it’s important that Provet Cloud’s development team realizes that they can make our day much better.”
The pre-launch planning process: “We all became wiser.”
When IVC Evidensia Denmark signed with Provet Cloud in early 2023, so began months of careful preparation leading up to the launch of all 11 locations on the new software.
A relationship of thorough, consistent communication between Anette’s management team, the Provet Cloud implementation team, and practice leaders ensured that the new system was built to IVC Evidensia’s specifications.
“We really thought through what we wanted,” Anette says. “For example, treatment templates – because we use treatment templates like a checklist to help us charge appropriately for certain treatments. It was important to spend the time building these templates into Provet Cloud.”
Anette says the time also allowed for testing and improving the system’s configurations. “The more work you do before go-live, the better. I had to go back and change some of the templates, and we were able to ask the developers to help with some features we felt could be optimized. We all became wiser during the process.”
“Provet Cloud was committed to a successful implementation every time.”
Through a combination of in-person and virtual training, onboarding onto Provet Cloud took place one practice at a time – an opportunity to identify and solve any obstacles before each subsequent launch.
“Each time, there were less stones in the shoes,” Anette says. “Already by the second clinic’s go-live, everyone involved was more aligned. We did better, and Provet Cloud did better.”
One of the biggest differentiators in the training process: Provet Cloud’s team included nurses and other experts who have in-clinic experience and are already familiar with the day-to-day challenges of veterinary staff.
“It was a huge benefit that they are people who have been in our shoes,” says Anette. “Our employees really appreciated that the implementation team understood intuitively what we wanted to do, whether creating anesthesia schemes or setting up a new invoice."
“Provet Cloud can do so many things.”
By the end of May 2023, all 11 IVC Evidensia practices in Denmark were live with Provet Cloud. “We have built in some nice features, and there’s a lot that’s working very well,” Anette says.
For example, it’s much easier to register treatment complications, which can be done directly in the system and enables quick retrieval of that data for reporting.
At its clinic in Karlslunde, some of Provet Cloud’s newest and most advanced functions are in place, including treatment plans for hospitalized patients, referral workflow, and a direct connection to IDEXX VetConnect PLUS and Laboklin. The 24-hour emergency center in that same clinic is also piloting Provet Cloud’s Digital Whiteboard – allowing veterinarians and nurses to monitor patients and treatment plans on a large screen – and the team’s feedback has already led to improvements on the new feature.
At an organization level, with all of its practices using the same practice management system, IVC Evidensia can leverage population-level data to enable better care. “We can track across Denmark and compare with Sweden and other countries, for example, about medication usage,” Anette says. “We can look at quality assurance at a company level, not only at a country or clinic level, and that’s definitely beneficial.”
