Regarding the parsing of PDFs for better pet care
In March we set out on a journey to ingest pet data and visualize it to an extent that it’s almost like your pet is actually talking to you. It comes from an attempt to rapidly-produce a Telehealth application for veterinary medicine in the wake of a global pandemic. It was an act of curiosity that would soon fuel an entire vision for viewing our pets lives in one standardized, centralized location.
We keep pursuing this vision, every day, despite numerous setbacks.
First, the Telehealth application. Next, PDF parsing tools. Then, dashboard and reporting tools. Navigating veterinary beta partners during a pandemic. Data dumps. Practice management system integrations. Most recently, new clinic interest.
the application that started it all
We think the sharing of a pet’s medical history by PDF should no longer exist.
Here’s why.
Reclaim your patient records
Hey. It’s 2020. A lot of you have been put through the wash this year. Meaning: Maybe your clinic has thrived? Maybe, not so much? Basically, everyone reading this has to deal with patient records in the form of PDFs on the daily, and it feels terrible. There’s enough going on in the world and the last thing you want to do is decipher someone else’s system notes, or try and read their handwriting. But you keep doing it. You have to do it. You’ve been accustomed to PDFs being a necessary evil in your lives. It’s just the way things are.
But what if they didn’t have to be?
What if you could take the PDF and make it something not boring? Something you enjoyed using? Something you loved?
Parsing PDFs for better pet care puts you in control. No longer must you be at the mercy of indecipherable system notes, dreadful handwriting, bewildering arrangements of attached files, or that one coworker that refuses to fill out the patient charts in full. Today is the day you stop and ask, “There has to be another way?!” Today is the day you reject PDFs! Today is the day you go out and see that there is a better way to transfer and communicate patient history.
Putting aside the fact that I’m a bit biased for you to use our tools, let’s try this on for size:
Ask your current practice management system if they have the ability to do something like this.
Pick a PiMS, any PiMS.
Put them in contact with our team: info@iveesoftware.com, any time, any day.
Those PDFs are now going away. Breathe it in.
It feels good, right?info@iveesoftware.com
Be a master communicator
Sharing something that is intentionally supposed to be Easily Absorbed and/or Informative gives you an incredible amount of power. First, sharing something that is Informative often means that you have a clearer vision of what a plan might be, and you tend to take pride in that plan more. Second, sharing something that is Easily Absorbed means that you’re not giving confusing advice and can help guide recommended treatment (yes, I am very grateful for the wonderful veterinarians and technicians that have taken care of my pets over the years).
For parsed PDFs, odds are that anything you share that’s informative will be 1000000% more educational than the PDFs you share currently, by default (unless you really enjoy sifting through endless documents to absorb patient history, in which case good on you). When you hit a wall communicating with clientele, you’re more likely to seek innovative ways of communicating until it finally works.
For example, after getting the Telehealth application up and running, we decided that we wanted to turn the application into a real, centralized location for all of our pet’s health. That was also, you guessed it! Easy to understand.
We wanted PDFs parsed, graphed, and filtered. They would offer a timeline of weight and vitals. A means of visualizing pets health from a timeline perspective. Knowing where their health had been, as a way to see where their health was going. We had no idea if it was possible when we started, but we really wanted to find out. Spoiler alert: it is possible.
Restrictions can reveal growth
How many great innovations or industry disruptors started with someone saying, “You couldn’t possibly do that with this? That’s what sharing parsed PDFs as Informative feels like, and why we’re committed to making it happen.
When you look at a patient record and think something like, “This is the best there is,” that’s your chance to prove yourself wrong.
If it helps, have someone else tell you that it’s just another piece of technology, and to quit wasting your time, because doing something out of perseverance is the most informative of all.
We think we can, we think we can…
When you’ve experienced patient records in parsed PDFs, and received your ultimate boon of an informative patient record, you get to tell the world about it. When we got back to work and realized that “real” patient records are still in PDFs, we opted to kick down the proverbial door and share our incredibly parsed PDF records. Giving you the power to be the Ruler of How to Care for Patients now.
All the patients’ records can now be visible and in one centralized location.
Two things:
We spent a couple of weeks chasing down veterinarians and technicians via phone calls, email, and social media campaigns. We thought that we still had time to insert ourselves into the Telehealth craze that was happening in veterinary and human medicine. Turns out we were wrong. That ship had definitely already sailed, but it did catch us a couple of fish that were interested in what we had to say (insert the gif here where we’re wiping the sweat from our brow).
Once you have people that are interested in your vision it makes the days a little less stressful. Well, that is until you get to navigate a new technology in an, already overwhelmed by technology, veterinary field. There’s a lot of reassurance and hands-on customer success. Which plays right into my field of expertise having spent my entire working career in customer service. We’re doing well, and I’m happy to plug in here the current support of 9 clinics, ~4000 pets, and wouldn’t you know it, more interested clinics.
Goodbye, PDFs
Want to share a patient record as an Easily Absorbed and/or Informative piece of communication?
