Hello. It's Anthony Chadwick from the Webinar vet welcoming you to another episode of that chat the U K's number one leading veterinary podcast. And I'm super pleased today to have, Duffy Jones on the line.
Duffy is a LinkedIn, mate. We met up on LinkedIn. We then met up at, Florida at the VMX.
Conference in in January. It was super to meet you, Duffy, and hear about all the super things. The amazing things you've been doing in the profession, obviously with DVM success, Obviously a veterinary surgeon.
But obviously, for people who don't know you, perhaps you can give yourself a little introduction. Sure. Thank you for having me on.
I'm really excited about this. And it was great catching up with you. Like you said, my name is Duffy Jones.
I'm a veterinarian here in Atlanta. Georgia. Graduated from vet school in 1999.
Really wanted to go into specialty practise, but ran out of money and so ended up having to go into general practise. Worked for a a vet. Good friend of mine for a long time.
Thought I was gonna be a veterinary owner of that clinic didn't work out, went out, started my own hospital. That point grew it from myself and a couple of nurses to 15 vets where we finally rolled together about 15 practises and sold to a corporate entity a couple of years ago. Worked in operations for that entity.
Great time. Really enjoyed that, learned a lot and then also kind of along the way have been a serial entrepreneur. I get restless, and so started a technology company about five years ago where we worked to help to produce business intelligence tools, for practises.
And now we've moved into the A I space, and we're really excited about where we are. I think the a IA I is is something that is just, taken over in 2023 2024 hasn't it? What amazes me though, Duffy, I was at the SPS conference, which is, the Society for Practising Veterinary Surgeons conference in January in the UK.
And it's obviously a more of a sort of practise management conference than a clinical conference. And we were talking about a I and chat GP T. And when somebody asked you know how many of you know chat GP T.
Only about a third to a half put their hands up. So we kind of think in the space that everybody will know what cha chat GP T is. But of course, it's, it is something that's probably still building and becoming part of the public consciousness, but I don't think it's quite there yet, is it?
In some ways, I don't think so. I mean, I think there's a lot of veterinarians who are very tech savvy, and then I think there's a lot that just really see technology as something that slows them down in the regular day. So a lot of times when, as we're explaining kind of what these large language models can do and chat G BT, we have to explain a lot of the technology behind it, and that's that's been a big kind of key finding for us.
Is, is when we explain how it works and really what we're trying to do with the A. I it really makes a difference. And ours is.
I think my my take on the A. I is a little bit different. I know that a lot of people look at a I as OK.
This can increase efficiency. This can then increase from a practise management side, the number of appointments. We see the number of patients we see and things like that where I really look at it a little bit from the vet life, style more than anything else.
If I can help vets, especially in America, get their charts done, get it in a way that is kind of fits with all of our legal things that we have to do over here to make sure that the charts are right. It may give them more time to really talk with the client. I, I felt over the last 5 to 10 years, veterinarians have become so rushed in what we do that we're missing the relationship that we used to have with our clients.
And that was what made us one of the most trusted professions out there, and I think we're losing a little bit of that because of the pressures of having to see so many cases and having to do all this extra work to try and get the charts done and things like that so if we can attack little bits and pieces of the veterinary day that allows them to relax and get to know those clients in the room, I really feel like the vet's quality of life will be better. We'll have less burnout. We'll have less people leaving the profession.
We'll have people getting back to really enjoying that client communication and really getting to know those clients. And that's really what our goal has been. We talk, we talk about kind of the 10 X veterinarian.
How do we make you really efficient? But we're not looking at it in the way that we can then make you see more. We're really at.
How can I make you so efficient that you're really good during the times that you're in the office? But then you get to go home and see your family and not worry about the charts that you didn't get to not worry about the stuff that keeps us up at night. I think it's a really good point because a lot of people come to me and you know, when I'm chatting to vets in the UK veterinarians, the big problem is I'm a five vet practise, but I've got three vets and I need two vets and, you know, well, good luck with that.
And there's obviously a number of solutions. One is as you were talking about there, about retaining people, and in fact, we had Garth Jordan doing a pod podcast, but also a webinar who's He's the CEO, as you know of our heart just talking about some of those problems. And actually, if there are so many people leaving the profession, you have to look upstream at where the problems are.
And obviously we're losing people you know too quickly, aren't we? And it's it's trying to make life easier and and that sort of five vet practise that has only three vets in it. You can either try your hardest to get the two vets, but you know, that's really tough.
Raise up the level of your technicians, but I think also as you suggested, using technology does seem to be the way that will, will make life easier and allow them to cope with that, because again, and I think it has calmed down, as you said. But the pandemic We also had these huge rush of new clients and patients, but I'm noticing in the UK we're starting to see, you know, people giving up their pets as well. Which is, you know, the rebound effect, I suppose, from covid and everything, isn't it?
Yeah. And we're seeing that across the country here in the US as well, too. We know as a profession, we're seeing volume visit volume really start to plummet.
And there's I think there's a lot of reasons for that. I think one is, during covid because of staff shortages, doctor shortages, a lot of clinics closed hours, they closed availability. And so it was very difficult to get in to get your pet seen.
And so I think restricting that had really a AAA lot of pressure to that decreased visits. The other is, that we really saw is that cost of care has really become a huge problem for us. We do.
We are not. The UK has a much better insurance adoption than we do in the United States. So we have.
Everyone has to come out of pocket and pay for this. And as prices have really jumped up significantly, we have priced some people out of being able to give care, and we are seeing shelter fill up. We're seeing that.
And one of the big reasons that the cost of care went up was that the cost of labour went up for us as well, too. And so what we're trying to do is balance that. And can we figure out creative solutions by using technology by using our nurses by changing the model of how we've always provided care, to be able to open access to care to more people?
And that's that's really we're trying to solve with RA. I really one part of that we're really just trying to solve. How do we make the vets be able to get through these appointments?
Provide the quality of care that they all want to provide, by by eliminating some of these back office tasks that they have to do but also some of the front office tasks you know, clipping nails, squeezing anal sacks. These are all things that you know, the nurses technicians can do as well, can't they? And that allows you to run that five that practise the old five.
That old traditional model should be able to be run with three vets if we can run it efficiently, shouldn't it? I remember a long time ago hills doing, you know, series on on practise management, and we spent time with them and it was really good. And, you know, it was something as simple as What is your ratio of bets to technicians And, you know, how can you actually get more from from the back office?
Because the the nurses are, you know, an amazing part of the team, aren't they? The technicians? And that's and that's one we've we've looked and really trying to teach practises.
How do you leverage your texts? How do you really? What do you feel comfortable with them doing?
What do you not feel comfortable with them doing? I think the biggest hold back, at least for a lot of clinics in America, is how do we effectively train our nurses to the level that we want them to be trained when we are in a busy practise? And that has always been the more difficult point.
We have developed some things where we're hoping with some of the A I that we can provide kind of like a copilot for the nurse. So when they have questions, or or they can can search your training modules and your standard operating procedures very quickly, it can bring those nurses up to speed as well, too a lot faster, where you can feel more comfortable that they are doing it in your way in your style of practise. Talking about training in the UK, we call it continuing professional development in America.
You call it continuing education. As I As I said, you know, we're separated by a common language, aren't we? The the training is is massively important because I think it also actually, makes people appreciate that the owners of the practise want to see them develop, whether they stay in the practise or move on.
So it's a really positive stressor for actually keeping people within the profession again to use some of Garth data that I was chatting to him about over the last few weeks. If people leave a practise, you know, some of them just don't come back to any practises, and then, you know, we've lost them forever from the profession, haven't we? So keeping them interested, making them lifelong learners because this job changes so quickly.
If we're not doing, training, then, you know it. It's, you fall behind very quickly, don't you? Yeah.
And that's where, you know, platforms like yourself have been so incredibly useful for us because not a lot of times we don't have time and we need a trusted source and we need it in different formats. For a long time, training was always in house. We closed the clinic, people came in, we trained and and the way times are right now, we don't have the time to do that.
And so now, being able to have these video sessions being able to do them on demand when people want to do them, having groups of people do them together, too. We found a lot of our nurses when we had them watch the same videos together. There was a lot of learning and accountability that occurred when they did it in groups.
And so we found, like I said, your platform very, very helpful for us in on boarding and keeping people moving forward in their education to really keep them in the profession. This profession is hard. I would love to tell you it's not, but it's hard, and I think what we need to really realise and accept that is it.
With it being hard, we have to always be providing things for our employees and our doctors, keep them motivated and keep them in this profession. And it is hard. It's a vocation, isn't it?
But at the same time, it's one of the best jobs in the world as well. You know that not everybody gets to cuddle puppies every day that they go into work, do they? And that's and that's what I really try and bring back with a lot of ads that, you know, The reason we got in this is because we wanted to make connections with people.
We love animals, but really very few animals walk into our office without a person attached. And so most of us really find incredible value at those relationships that we establish with people in our community. So when we see them at the grocery store, we know them.
We trust them, they trust us, and and that's where we're trying to really find time for the veterinarian to really establish those relationships again and be able to enjoy them and not look at them as something that is one more thing, another burdensome thing that occurs in the profession because I think sometimes that happens. And they're starting to get worried about. What are they going to say to me at the grocery store instead of Hey, how are you doing?
How are the kids? What's going on? How are you doing?
And so, like I said, I want to get us back to why a lot of us really got into this profession is we have the freedom to not only have these great relationships with our clients, but also then to save animals, practise the things that we learned and really make a difference. Are you currently looking for a new role? Or maybe you're thinking about lo comming but don't know where to start.
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Simply vets.com to find out how we can help going back to DVM, success. And obviously the a I tools that you created I mean, the it is an unfortunate, use of initials because, of course, vets of a certain age, the A I is artificial insemination, not artificial intelligence.
But let's let's go with the new definition. Where do you see? Give us a couple of examples where you've used a i with DB M success to really help you know, your own practise in Georgia, but also other practises that are using the tools We developed a lot of different A I tools, and we kind of put them out there to the public and the ones we've had the best response with is is we have one that when you walk into the exam room, you can hit record and it will record the entire history between you and the client, so it will record it.
It will summarise it when you're finished, kind of that history. And then it starts to suggest differential. Diagnosis is from that history.
And so what it does is we really wanted the vet involved in the process of of using it and not have the A. I tell them everything, so you're allowed to. Then you can choose which differentials you want.
You add them in there. It provides a treatment plan based on those differentials, and it's all editable. So at the end, five minutes after you've seen the client, you can have the entire chart written down with your treatment plan that you can then send to the client as well, too, as well as put in your chart.
And so we found that that one's been incredibly helpful because a lot of stress a lot of vets have a lot of stress when they have 20 to 30 charts to write up at the end of the day. And so this is eliminating a lot of that stress. It's also giving, you know, for some of us that might be a little older and forgotten some of these diseases, it does prompt some diseases that I haven't seen in a while.
I have to admit that which has been really good. New grads tend to really like that, too, because it's kind of like a double check. It's having a mentor there as well, and so that one's been hugely popular the other one that's been incredibly popular is we have one that can record the phone conversation between you and a client.
And so when you've talked to a client, you've gone over things on the phone with them. It will summarise all that so you can put it in the chart so that 10 to 15 minutes of writing everything that you said to the client and getting it into the chart has been extremely helpful. We have a lab work module as well, too, that you can drop in the lab results, and it will again generate an email to the client in the summary of that lab work.
That one hasn't been quite as popular as the other two, but I see that one is something that, as we kind of get used to the A I and learn, it's another tool that can help them be a little bit more efficient in writing those emails and doing that communication. So that's where we're where we've really focused. We have some ideas later that we're working on, on the business side that can start to look at, like your P and L and your expenses and we'll start to suggest, say, Here's some ideas to correct this, to help your business run a little bit better to really kind of help people get ideas and and understand their business.
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, Americans, I think, are renowned for being great at customer service and communication. So it probably doesn't happen in America, but the number of times, you know, and I I like to explain things.
Well, I in fact, used to write things down. But the number of times that I've heard, you know, the client goes out and they go to the nurse or the receptionist and they go, can you just explain that all to me again? And I actually also saw something recently about a study that people did where they, they had the, clinician write notes out to the client, but they were quite technical, and obviously people wouldn't understand them.
And then when they were written out in plain, you know, layman's terms, it was much more, understandable. And actually, people were much more likely to be compliant, so we can say all these things I. I did a lot of dermatology consults.
And my favourite one was always, you know, speaking to the vet before I saw the client and, or I'd have a letter from them, and they they in the letter would say this dog has been on a food trial, you know, a royal cannon or a Hills food trial for the last three months. So one of the advantages I had and I think you were alluding to it before, is just that benefit of having an hour with that person. Obviously, I kind of knew maybe a bit more about dermatology than the person who was referring.
But actually, I think the biggest thing was just sit down, have 20 minutes chat before you even touch the animal. And it was amazing how much in that 20 minutes you could pretty much come to a diagnosis. And then he spent the next 20 to 40 minutes, you know, kind of seeing if you were right and then developing a treatment plan.
But my favourite one was always so, so you're on the royal canon. Hypoallergenic diet. And what else do you feed?
Well, he doesn't really like it. Just on his own. So I always put a bit of chicken on top and then he gets his bit of toast.
You know, last thing at night and suddenly, in fairness to the vet who thought that they were doing a really good food trial, they weren't and and yet trying to explain that to everyone takes time. So it's not a criticism of the vets but being able to give them something in plain English that they can take home. I always did it with all my derm clients.
You know, right? I want monthly flea treatment. I want this really vigorous food trial.
And if you can't do it, then in some ways don't start it because you've got to do it really strictly for 4 to 8 weeks. And then, you know, do they need antibiotics or shampoos or whatever else they needed written down really clearly and explaining even simple things like how to use a shampoo because people don't necessarily know that if you leave it on for 30 seconds, it's probably not gonna do a great job. So, tho, those two tools in themselves I mean they can save an amazing amount of time with a simpler sort of example which isn't really a I.
We just built a, a tool that would integrate with the royal colleges app that you have to put your training on to. So if you do a QR with a QR code next to all of our webinars if you zap that QR code, it takes it immediately onto the one CPD app. And that's saving you 10 minutes of writing down.
I went to this webinar. This was what it was about. This was the speaker, of course, over a over a year that can save, you know, a lot of hours, can't it?
So all of these strategies, I think are really important. But the two tools I think are so important because actually the lab reports probably clients don't mind looking at, but won't understand. But that kind of summary of the history discussing treatments and and differentials is is massive, isn't it?
It really is. I mean, what we found was we used to do we used to write all these out, and we found many years ago that when we wrote a summary to the client after every appointment, we had much better compliance, and we had much better that we under. We started to understand that in the exam room, clients are nervous.
I mean, they're nervous because their pets nervous. They're nervous because sometimes they don't understand what we're doing. Sometimes we as vets are not great at explaining what we're doing as we're going along.
And so these clients have a lot of anxiety, and so sometimes that prevents them from really hearing what we're talking about. And so for us, what we what we found is when we sent that email, we had a lot of clients just really appreciate that and was like, thank you for the summary I'd forgotten you said this or you are correct. This is this is exactly how we want the food trial to be and and in that way and what it does to is, it then creates that bond.
So there's that trust. So the next time they come in they trust us that we're going to send a response to them so they're a little less nervous, and so they're a little bit more forthcoming and remember things that could be incredibly beneficial in us getting to a diagnosis because It's just it's hard with a lot of things going on, a lot of things in their lives. You know, we we just needed to build that trust so that they felt really comfortable with us and for me, what I also always felt with when I had more time to really get to know the client every time they came in.
It was easier for me to get to a diagnosis because there was that trust they trusted. If I said, Hey, I think we really need lab work on this one. We built up their trust over the years, and so they really you know, they really appreciated that.
I would just say it when we need to do things, and so if I can build in time where the vets can really start to build those relationships like we have built over the years, I really do feel like it's going to be more rewarding for them. I think it's really important. So this tool, obviously you're using in your own practise in Georgia.
But are you now, selling that to the practises in America as well? Yeah. So what we've done is on our website at Dvm.com under A I tools you can sign up.
It's $20 a month. You get all the A I tools. And really, what we want at this point is feedback.
We would just want to know what you think about it. How's it going? What can we improve?
Most of our movements have all been from our customers that have been using it. One was the telephone conversation. They're like, Hey, can we use this to record telephone calls?
Because, boy, that takes me a tonne of time and this could be a really, really good thing that way. So we're always looking for that feedback so anybody can sign up. Anybody can get on and use them.
You can go on for a month and cancel. You can do whatever you want. We just We we really like the products.
We think that these are good products that can help you save time. And so we really want people to get that and use them. You know, we have some technical issues.
Sometimes people have trouble finding where their microphone is and some other things, but it works on your phone. It works on ipads. It works on computers.
And if you have technical issues, we're here to help you as well. And is that just available to vets in America or across the world across the world? You can use it across the world.
We we are working on a multi-language product, so that's in Japan could use it, things like that. We're not quite there yet because that's a little bit we we want to make sure we have really good testing on that, that we don't, as you said, mess up some language issues on it. But overall, we've just found, It works really well for anyone who wants to try it.
And I think we were chatting it, VMX. And then you were going home because I think you had some family duties. I'm never quite sure.
Is it football or soccer? I think it was soccer that your Children play soccer for here in America. It's football for y'all.
So yes, my kids, I'm I'm I coach one of the high school teams here, and I've done it for a long time. It's been incredibly, actually great. We're, we've made our playoffs, so we don't.
We don't do tables like you do in England. We tend to do a playoff American playoff type system. So we've qualified for the playoffs and we're moving forward, which is good.
That's fantastic. I'm from Anfield, which is where the Liverpool football club have their stadium and I always say, you know, it's the right shape ball these these oblong balls for rugby or American football. They're just the wrong shape, aren't they?
They are. It is. It's funny.
We always laughed at because we have, you know, foot American football. We call football. So when we talk about it, we're always like, Do you play football or football like you?
The real football? So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Duffy, it is great to speak to you.
I love the idea of these, these tools, as you say, it's DV MD, V, MD vm.com is where you can go. The company's name is DVM success.
But our website is dvm.com and really appreciate you having me on appreciate everything you're doing for CE as well, too. It's really been incredibly beneficial for our staff and to to really kind of keep them motivated and engaged.
Fantastic. Duffy. What a what a website URL you've got there.
It shows you were an early a doctor. I think you were in there earlier. We were my, my partner.
Ravi and I are kind of tech geeks. So this is something that we've been working on for a long time doing for a while. Fantastic.
Duffy. Great to speak to you again. If I don't see you before, God willing, we might make it to VMX again and be able to see each other.
But it's always a pleasure to speak to you. And, best of luck with the playoffs.
