Elevate Your Patient Outcomes: Mindset, Communication, Checklists & Collaborative Care

On Demand available Virtual

On Demand Available

Business, Leadership, & Communication

SAIM (Small Animal Internal Medicine)

Cardiology

LAIM (Large Animal Internal Medicine)

Course Overview

Improving patient outcomes in veterinary medicine requires more than clinical expertise. It requires a culture that supports learning, communication, and collaboration.

In this four-part series, you will explore how mindset, communication practices, structured safety tools, and collaborative care models work together to reduce error, strengthen teams, and elevate patient and client care. Through evidence-informed strategies and real-world examples, this offering provides practical approaches you can apply immediately within your own practice environment. Together, these sessions provide a cohesive framework for building safer systems and stronger teams in today’s veterinary practices.

Each session includes content from top-rated ACVIM Forum programming, enhanced with newly designed interactive elements that support reflection and real-time application of key insights. In alignment with ACVIM’s mission, vision, and values, this offering has been developed with accessibility and affordability in mind.

Sessions in Elevate Your Patient Outcomes are:

When Being Wrong Can Be Right
Words Matter: How Communication Impacts Patient Safety and Outcomes
Introducing Checklists to Your Practice
Maximizing Collaborative Care to Improve Patient Outcomes

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Who Should Attend

ACVIM Diplomates and Candidates
European Diplomates and Candidates
Affiliate Diplomates and Candidates
Veterinarians
Veterinary Technicians
Veterinary Assistants
Students
Allied Professionals

Agenda

When Being Wrong Can Be Right

Recording Duration: 50 minutes
Interactive Course Duration: Approximately 75 minutes

Session Description:

This module will explore the concept of confident humility and the different types of mistakes that can lead us to be better clinicians, team members and leaders. The focus will be how to develop tools to best mitigate mistakes and to sustain emotional wellbeing in a productive self-learning approach.

Words Matter: How Communication Impacts Patient Safety and Outcomes

Recording Duration: 50 minutes
Interactive Course Duration: Approximately 75 minutes

Session Description: This module will explore the impact of communication techniques on culture and patient outcomes in healthcare settings. Findings from recent research on the topic of communication openness will be discussed, along with examples from the veterinary and human literature on communication and patient outcomes.

Introducing Checklists to Your Practice

Recording Duration: 50 minutes
Interactive Course Duration: Approximately 75 minutes

Session Description: The use of checklists and care bundles in human medicine has been shown to decrease the frequency of errors and to improve outcomes. Identifying procedures with high rates of error and implementing checklists to address these errors has been successful in both human and veterinary medicine. This lecture explores the background of the development of checklists and discusses the landmark studies that sparked their use. The lecture also reviews the literature surrounding checklists in veterinary medicine and introduces veterinary checklists to participants. Finally, the lecture discusses ways to develop and implement checklists in your veterinary practice.

Maximizing Collaborative Care to Improve Patient Outcomes

Recording Duration: 50 minutes
Interactive Course Duration: Approximately 75 minutes

Session Description: Collaboration between specialists and general practitioners is vital for successful patient outcomes. Primary case responsibility can move from general practitioner to specialist and back again. With continuous collaboration, patient outcomes can be improved, client resources can be used judiciously, and veterinary teams can maximize use of their time. Join a boarded internist and general practitioner for an interactive, case-based discussion of ways to improve communication and maximize efficiency to successfully co-manage cases.

Cost

Category	Price
Nonmember Diplomates	$125
Primary Care Veterinarians	$125
ACVIM Diplomates	$100
European Affiliate Diplomates	$100
Practice Managers, Admin Staff, Client Care Team Members	$75
ACVIM Candidates	$50
European Affiliate Candidates	$50
Technicians, Veterinary and Technician Students, Veterinary Assistants	$50

Meet the Instructors

Michael Podell, DVM, MSC, DACVIM (Neurology)

Senior Vice President, Healthcare

MedVet

Michael Podell, DVM, MSc, Diplomate, ACVIM (Neurology) serves as Senior Vice in Healthcare for MedVet where he was previously Chief Medical Officer. He received BA degrees in Biology and Psychology with Honors at the University of North Carolina, a Masters of Science in Physiology at Tel-Aviv University, and a DVM degree from Tufts University. Post-graduate education included an internship at The Animal Medical Center followed by a residency in neurology at The Ohio State University. He then served as a Full Professor at The Ohio State University before starting the first veterinary neurology and neurosurgery private practice in Chicago. Dr. Podell is passionate and committed to improve the overall wellbeing of our veterinary healthcare providers.

Richard Stone, DVM, DACVIM (SAIM)

Chief Medical Officer

BluePearl, Mars Veterinary Health

Dr. Richard Stone is a Diplomate of the ACVIM (small animal internal medicine) and is the Chief Medical Officer for BluePearl Pet Hospital. He has a strong interest in driving scalable improvements in medical quality, patient safety, and healthcare team performance. Dr. Stone has worked in conjunction with the BluePearl medical quality team to implement patient safety advancements and medical quality standards across 100+ hospitals nationwide.

Melinda Larson, DVM, DACVIM (SAIM)

Director of Medical Quality

BluePearl

Dr. Melinda Larson did her rotating internship and internal medicine residency at BluePearl in Tampa, and she led the Internal Medicine service in the BluePearl Clearwater hospital for eight years before becoming the Director of Medical Quality for BluePearl Pet Hospitals in 2022. Clinically, her interests include ultrasound, endocrine disease, and mentoring interns and residents; with her current role, she is most passionate about increasing awareness of the importance of patient safety science and continuous learning and improvement.

Kristin Zerzen, DVM, MS, DACVECC

Assistant Professor, Emergency and Critical Care

Colorado State University

Dr. Kristin Zersen is an Assistant Professor at the Colorado State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital and diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care. She obtained her DVM from UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and completed her residency at Colorado State University. Her professional interests include infectious diseases, fluid therapy, and mechanical ventilation. Her research is primarily clinical trial based and includes work in pharmacokinetics and evaluation of intravenous catheter complications.

Kate Boatright, VMD

Founder

KMB Veterinary Media, LLC

Dr. Kate Boatright has been in small animal practice since graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 2013. After nearly 8 years of full-time practice in both general practice and emergency clinics, she moved to part-time clinical work to pursue her passion for educating veterinary professionals as a freelance speaker and author. Dr. Boatright enjoys discussing mentorship, the unique challenges facing recent graduates, wellness, and the spectrum of care.