Hello, it's Anthony Chadwick from the webinar Vett welcoming you to another episode of Vet Chat, the UK's number one veterinary podcast. And I'm really pleased and honoured to have Steve Garrett on the line today. Steve is a veterinary surgeon based in South Carolina, an orthopaedic surgeon, er, also a general surgeon as well, particularly interested in cruiseate disease, but we're not gonna be talking about that today because Steve is also the, Advisor and consultant for Vet Measure, which is a a really amazing company that's developed a wearable called Measureron, which we're gonna be talking about today.
But before we go into that, Steve, I thought if you just like to introduce yourself and tell the audience a little bit about yourself. Yeah, thank you. So yeah, I, I currently live in South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina.
I work at a referral hospital, Charleston Veterinary Referral centre. I'm one of several surgeons there and function as a general surgeon. I grew up in Ohio.
I, you know, kind of in a family of, that was always in the, the veterinary profession and, . Eventually I made my way to through veterinary school and internships and residencies and lived a few places, but definitely settled in here in South Carolina. I became involved with .
That measure, as an advisor about 3 years ago, and it's been a tonne of fun, you know, there it. Like many things in the veterinary world, you know, technology is playing a larger and larger role, and and that's what really drew me to this, to this position and this opportunity to be able to. To be involved with, with that progression of technology in, in the veterinary world.
So, I'm excited to talk about that measure and, and the measure I'm monitor today and get the word out so that everyone can start using it. It it's really exciting, as you said, technology is becoming more and more significant and I think. We can also use technology for our benefit.
We sometimes people worry about technology and the pace of change and things are going too quickly. But also we then have a shortage of vets. And actually any digital tool, any tool that can help us to lighten our load is I think something that is really, really positive and I think this is the sort of field where I see measure on falling into because we have to do each day.
Lots of routine things as a veterinary surgeon and as a veterinary technician. If we can have a computer or, you know, a wearable being able to take some of that load from us, it actually can be a really great time saving device as well, can't it? Yeah, you, you really hit it right on the head there.
You know, one of the biggest benefits of, of implementing these measure, measure on harnesses into your clinic, whether that's a general practise who is just doing day hospitalizations for one reason or another, or, you know, a big busy emergency or referral hospitals is . Efficient efficiency, you know. And measure on, you know, it essentially can can transmit a patient's temperature, heart rate, and respiratory rate onto either an app or a web-based application, and you're getting continuous monitoring on these patients, whereas otherwise, you know, you were doing every maybe 6 or 8 hours going in there and getting your TPRs and then On top of that, it will elaborate on what you said, you know, that took a technician or an assistant or two sometimes depending on the patient to, to go in and obtain obtain this information, these vitals, you know.
So with the general shortage of veterinarians and especially the support staff, you know, this is a huge time saver and, and improves the level of care that our patients are getting in hospital. And I think this is the thing with patient care. Obviously at the time of the operation, we're kind of on top of the dog cat and looking at it very closely, but we can have problems sort of postoperatively where a dog is, or a cat is put back into a kennel.
If we're not monitoring that all the time by looking at it, then. There can be things that go wrong in that situation, whereas again, er a monitor that is able to pick up things when things are perhaps becoming a bit abnormal can then alert us that we need to spend more time with that patient. Yeah, 100%.
You know, especially when you're talking about surgery, you know, that 1st 12 to 24 hours, if something's gonna go wrong, that's the most common time for it to go wrong. So, and, and the faster you can recognise a complication either arising or have occurred, you know, the faster you're going to intervene and improve your chance of resolving that complication uneventfully. And you know, that complication may be as simple as Discomfort or having to go out and urinate, you know, the, you know, and you can notice a, a trend in, in increasing heart rate, but it can also be a major complication like a leaking intestinal surgery site and enterotomy or or gastronomy or something along those lines, you know, and, and picking up on those as soon as possible is, is vital in improving the outcome of the patient, so.
Think also there's a benefit. You've anaesthetized the dog, the cat for the operation, and this is an animal that can we explain it as being feisty. The animals then coming around and obviously after a few hours we want to go in and listen to the heart and take a temperature.
It's stressful for the animal because the animal obviously doesn't like being manipulated and so on. So again, because this is being done remotely. It's even better for the animal welfare as well in that it's not disturbing the animal unnecessarily.
Yeah, and, and there's multiple benefits in that situation, you know, you said it very politely and feisty, and I mean, yeah, I mean, we, we have aggressive patients and half the time it's not their fault. They're scared to death, they're in a foreign environment and and something big just happened to them. So.
So yeah, you know, by having, you know, a wireless continuous monitor like measure on in place, one, you're getting accurate vitals, you know, because we all know if you pull out that aggressive patient, and it takes you 30 seconds to do so and get a leash around and all this stuff and you're restraining the patient to listen to the heart, the heart rate's gonna be, you know, inaccurate. It's not what it was when the patient was resting in the hospital. It's stressful on the patient, and it's stressful on our staff, you know, the support staff.
They're, they're very, very brave and very, very good at what they do, but it's, it's putting them sometimes in situations that are not ideal, and by using the measure on, you're obtaining accurate data, accurate vitals, accurate monitoring. All while not putting anybody in danger, not stressing out the patients, and it's kind of a win win win for for everyone. Yeah, I don't think anybody vet or nurse or vet technician wants to open a kennel door when all they can see is white teeth being bird at them.
Yeah. Yeah. And as you said, the accuracy of whatever figures that you do get are, are debatable once you've stressed that animal out as well.
And obviously not helping in its recovery if it's in a delicate position, you know, as it is. Sure. Yeah, making a lot of the.
Decisions we make in terms of analgesics and, and, you know, whether or not a patient is ready to go home, you know, or based on those vitals. And if we're not getting accurate results, then, you know, making appropriate decisions for that patient and that and and those owners can be challenging. So this kind of takes that, variable out of, out of the equation and, and provides a lot more simple, simplifies the decisions that we have to make every day.
Obviously this is a device that you're using in the . In the hospital in the clinic, do you see this as being something that could be useful for? The patient being able to go home with it to monitor it more longer term to help satisfy the client, the temperature and heart rate are doing OK, is that something that you do do sometimes?
We've not done it personally at at CVRC where where I work, but we, . In general, the answer is yes, it absolutely can be done. And, and we see the potential benefit in it, you know, because especially for the right owner in the right situation, you know, you maybe you want A close eye on that patient for the 1st 12 to 24 hours once it goes home, you know, and, and especially, I think that that would be even more appropriate in a general practise setting where most general practitioners, yes, they are doing surgery and sometimes they're, they're bigger surgeries, you know.
And at the same time, not all, but most general practise don't offer overnight care, 24 hour care. So, you know, you can keep an eye on them in hospital with routine measurements and then send them home with this monitor so that you are monitoring vitals from your couch that night and that morning, you know. As long as, as long as that device is hooked up to Wi Fi, anybody that is logged into the account, and attached to the harness can view instantaneous results, with TPR as well as an activity monitor.
Not that most patients are going to be doing that in the 1st 12 to 24 hours, but certainly if you see a high activity level that can be a red flag that maybe our owners aren't following our, our instructions very well. So I, I suppose the monitor is. Useful in the general practitioner sense and can be used at home, but in a referral hospital, you will often keep the patient in longer because people will maybe have travelled further, would have to travel far to get home, so you want them to be in a really good stable state before you send them home anyway, so there's less need to send them home with a monitor at a referral centre.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, for most referral facilities that are doing, you know, bigger, more invasive, more painful, more risky procedures, you know, and, and, and what you said, not uncommonly our, our owners travelling, a good distance to get there, you know, we're hospitalising them overnight, and sometimes a night or two. So, that's why in our referral setting, we kind of envision this as being more an in hospitals use.
To up the level of care in hospital and, and improve patient care, whereas in a general practise setting, for the average general practise who doesn't have overnight care, I think those are the situations when discharging the patient with the harness in place, and set up, would, would work out wonderfully. Hm. Tell us a little bit about how easy is it to get these monitors on these harnesses onto to patients.
Presumably you have different sizes for cats and dogs and and so on. Yeah, you know, when the harnesses first arrive, they're packaged and, and they come with a a a kind of a quick setup guide, and then there's also a bit more in depth instruction guide if needed. You know, that initial setup and connect connecting it to your Wi Fi, you know, per harness, you'll probably spend 5 or 10 minutes getting it connected.
But that's the last time you have to then connect it. Once it's connected to your Wi Fi, you're good to go as long as it stays in your hospital. Now, when an individual patient, if, if you're like, OK, you know, this patient is going to be, a benefit to, to wear a measure on harness, applying the harness, you know, Literally takes less than a minute.
There's 33 easy clicks, to kind of hold it in place around the chest. And then you have to connect it to the app, which you can have either on your phone or if you're on a, medical, a digital digital medical record keeping system that has tablets involved. Anything that has Apple or Android can download the app.
And you just connect it through that way with a couple clicks. So from the time I take the harness off the shelf to the time that it is completely connected to the patient, takes 2 or 3 minutes. And then, you know, it, it can stay in place as long as you like.
You know, for us, we choose the increments that allows it for the battery to last approximately 24 hours or so. If you want more frequent data points, then you, the, the overall duration of the battery will slow, will decrease a bit, you know, maybe down to 12 to 18 hours depending on, on how frequently you're monitoring, but you can do the opposite, you know, you can also monitor less frequently and in that situation, the, the battery will last even longer. Now, that doesn't mean that it's not being continuously monitored.
You know, you can always check on the app and, and know an instantaneous TPR but when it comes to the, the record that it spits out once you're all set and done to add to the the patient medical record, that's where the data points will be a little different in terms of the time increments. Hm. If you were keeping this on for a dog that was hospitalised for 2 or 3 days in the hospital, is it possible to change a battery or to use a new harness?
I mean, how many harnesses do you have in your referral hospital, Steve? We have one of each size. So, to go back to your original question, which I didn't address, these are sized based on chest circumference.
So part of applying it is, getting out a measuring tape, which is provided. It's like a tailor's tape. You wrap it around the dog's chest and you make your measurement and then, and then you pick which side you're gonna, which side you're gonna use between extra small and large.
Honestly, after using this for 3 years, I don't have to get the measuring tape anymore. You know, I, I can just look at a dog and know what size it needs. And then, certainly if I put it on, I'm like, yeah, that's a little snug or that's a little big, you know, I'll change it out.
But that, that's few and far between nowadays. But, but yeah, so in order to, in, if you, if you wanted to increase the length of it and your battery died, one, you would have to have two of the same size, and then you just swap it out, which would again take you 2 minutes, 3 minutes. The alternative would be you take it off and you charge it up real quick, which would probably take an hour or so, maybe 2, and then you, you put it right back on the patient.
So, you probably just do that, you know, midday while everyone's there and busy and, you know, everyone can keep an eye on the patient otherwise. No, that's brilliant. So it's a really quick charge up as well.
Yeah. And the nice thing with it being a re rechargeable battery is that you've not got the waste of loads of batteries, which is one expensive but also not great for the environment either. Right, right, and, and the harnesses that I've had, you know, we've, I've not seen over the years, I haven't seen a decrease in duration of, of their function.
So they they hold up well. And how do the vets get hold of this device? Is it something that you lease out or presumably most people just buy as you've done a a collection of them to have in their practise?
Yeah, for the most part, you can get a demonstration through, through that measure, either speaking to Kevin or Grace or are really gonna be the the two contact points there. And, you know, you could do a little digital demonstration of it and they can answer a lot of questions and I'm happy to be involved as well. But ultimately, yep, you purchase whatever harnesses you think fit for your practise setting, and then, again, they get delivered with everything you need to get started.
And as you said, that needs you to just also download an app either onto your phone or your tablets and you synchronise the app and the the . The harness together, the monitor together to get the the information that you need. You're exactly correct, and it's just like any other app, you know, available through your app store on your, your phone or tablet, it's free, .
And whereabouts are you selling these at the moment? Is this a product that's mainly being sold in America and Canada, or are you selling it across the world now? It's across the world.
I believe we're in 5 countries now and it's just purchased, through, through the website. So, vetmeasure.com.com.
It sounds like it's a really fantastic product that is so important. It gives us so many advantages of one, easy monitoring. You don't need to be disturbing the, the patient while it is, as you say, uncomfortable, anxious, distressed.
It's I I'm saving a lot of time for, for the technician and the vet as well. Yeah, again, you know, I, I think I used this term before, but I mean that. Once you get these in your hospital and you start using them, you know, you find that it, it, there are, there is no downside, you know, because you, you're increasing your level of monitoring for your patient, you're doing a better job of detecting problems after surgery, you're providing better care, you're saving time.
You're ultimately you're saving money because again, not that that's Most of us didn't get in in veterinary medicine to make money, but we have to keep our hospitals open, you know, and again, with the staff, staff shortages that are pretty much everywhere in the world right now in the veterinary world, you know, this is a way to save time, be efficient. All while still providing the same, if not even better level of care for our patients and, and our clients. You know, clients love the idea of this, you know, because we've all had You know, family that's been in the hospital and, you know, you go visit them and, you know, you walk by the nurse's station and, and, you know, Grandpa and 17 other patients, vitals are all broadcasted right there in the nursing station.
You know, they're constantly being monitored, you know, and up until, you know, measure on came along, that really wasn't a reliable thing in veterinary medicine. There's some telemetry devices out there and such, but I've never met a person or a or a system that works well and reliably. We all hated them and just dealt with them because that's the only technology that's there, you know, and now this is essentially making it more comparable to what our human family members are being monitored in hospitals around the world.
Something else I, I, I don't think we mentioned, but, but it's worthwhile mentioning as well as a perk of this is, you know, we've definitely, the TPR is, is the mainstay of what's monitored, you know, the activity monitor is on there as well. And again, I think in the hospital, we don't use it or stress it too terribly much, but for those that are taking this home is when I think that activity monitor will be of great use. Now, in addition to those four things, there is also an EK EKG or ECG that's built into this.
It's, runs on Bluetooth technology and instant and it's instantaneous. So you, if, if you sculpt a patient and you, you kind of have a question, you're like, I don't know, you know, maybe there's an arrhythmia there, maybe there's not, you know, instead of carting the patient over to, you know, cardiology or wherever you keep your EKG or rolling a machine in or something. Again, all in the app, you just open up the EKG application and it spits out real-time EKG and you can watch it for as long as you want.
You could detect all the basic arrhythmias on there and, and intervene. And again, a really useful tool to diagnose things quickly or help you diagnose things quickly using that digital tool. Absolutely.
Steve, it sounds like a fantastic addition to the veterinary practise. I'm so pleased you've taken your time to come and explain it to us. If people do want to know more, it's is it vetmeasure.com or Measureron.com?
Vetmeasure.com is the company in the in the business. Measureron is the specific device, the product.
But if people want to find this, go to the website which is vetmeasure.com, they'll be able to find it and book an appointment. If they want to speak to somebody to try and, order this.
Correct. Fantastic. Steve, thanks so much for your time.
That's been really interesting and as I say it's sounds like it's a fantastic product which is really gonna add. Both to referral but also general practise as well. Yeah, absolutely.
We're very excited to get the word out, you know, this is something that I think is really gonna change the veterinary world and be fairly commonplace probably here in the next 5 or 10 years. Yeah, fantastic. If you want to know more about the measure on device, we have a full webinar where you can learn more.
Just follow the link in the description below and it will take you to the webinar. If you haven't registered on the webinar vet site, you will have to register, but this is a really straightforward thing to do and we do hope you enjoy the webinar. Steve, thank you so much.
Take care. Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for having me.
Thanks everyone for listening, this has been Anthony Chadwick, and it's been vet chat. Take care, speak soon.
