Conclusion
Adopting a family-centered approach offers veterinary practitioners the opportunity to find a collage of solutions that work for more pet caregivers, even those facing complicated and systemic barriers to acquiring veterinary care. This approach in turn can not only help provide more community access to veterinary care but also help alleviate the widespread moral distress experienced by veterinary health care teams, promote greater job satisfaction and retention, and reconnect with the foundation of the veterinarian oath.
A community care network, situated within a family-centered practice framework, ensures that no one is alone in facing access-to-care challenges. Establishing a community care practice is an ongoing process. Staying curious will allow practitioners to open themselves to new possibilities and perceive the world around them through a new, inclusive lens. Additional resources, including tools to implement and support diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging practices, can be found at aaha.org/community-care.
A community care network unifies services already in place to ensure that families do not go without care. By building partnerships spanning private practice, nonprofit practice, and government spheres, the community care network is also ultimately about how veterinary teams support each other in this important and lifesaving work.
The 2024 AAHA Community Care Guidelines for Small Animal Practice are generously supported by CareCredit, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, IDEXX, Merck Animal Health, and Pawlicy Advisor.
