Veterinary Practice Management Software Development: The Ultimate Guide

Digital innovations help to simplify the processes – from invoice management to electronic medical records – and give more flexibility and control to users. Custom veterinary practice management software is one of the healthcare technology solutions that helps to improve general practice.

The latest studies show that the global veterinary hospital software market is growing rapidly. It stood at a value of around USD 1.4 billion in 2020, and by the end of 2027, it is expected to reach $2.08 billion. The estimated CAGR for the veterinary software market is 6.1%: compare it to the estimated CAGR of the global healthcare IT market, which is 14%.

Custom veterinary practice management solutions have become an urgent need for every veterinary hospital or clinic. According to AVMA, over 57% of US residents own a pet, and in 2021 US pet industry expenditure reached almost $110 billion in the US.

Moreover, Covid-19 had a huge impact on the veterinary industry: in Japan, the demand for dogs and cats increased by 15%. By the end of 2020, there were 8.49 million dogs and 9.64 million cats being kept as pets.

The demand for pets is also rising in the US: in 2020, 63.4 million dogs and 42.7 million cats were kept as pets. According to the latest APPA National Pet Owners Survey (2021-2022), 70% of US households own a pet. It means that in 90.5 million homes, there is either a cat or a dog.

A huge number of pets has a certain effect on economics and the veterinary business. Imagine this: in 2020, $103.6 billion was spent on pets in the United States only. $42.0 billion were spent on pet foods and treats, $22.1 billion on supplies, live animals & OTC medicine, and $31.4 billion on vet care and product sales.

People spend billions of dollars on taking care of their pets, and veterinary businesses need to support high standards and satisfy both humans and pets' clients with the best services.

Veterinary services cover diagnostics and treatment of diseases, physical examinations, dentistry, surgery, radiology, pharmacy, vaccinations, mediations, and others. Therefore, a clinic that provides these services needs to control processes and patients. Many of them choose to build a veterinary management system that covers their needs.

Indeed, this decision reveals more opportunities for the veterinary clinic. For instance, you need an option of inventory tracking. Some of the existing veterinary management software may not provide it.

When you decide to build veterinary software on your own, you can add any feature you may need, including appointment scheduling and advanced reporting.

Veterinary practice management system development is now the basic need for any clinic or hospital. But how does the market of vet medical technologies work?

This article will focus on the main questions when creating custom software for the pet clinic. We'll discuss the latest trends, benefits of using such software in your practice, discuss the main challenges in software development and define key features a software must-have. The article is based on Softermii's experience with PetRealTime.

Slava Ivanov

Global IT partnerships and Strategic development

Contact Slava to get all the information on Veterinary Practice Management Software Development

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Veterinary practice software development trends

Veterinary practice management software features are common to the features of the software for human clinics and hospitals. Veterinarians actively use cloud-based solutions to record each patient and data analysis to track the inventory. Trends for veterinary practice are also very similar to healthcare. Here are the top 5 of them:

1. Wide implementation of reports

Running reports is perhaps one of the most popular custom veterinary management software trends. However, there's one more thing that makes it so desired by the clinics and hospitals: the possibility to automate processes.

As we all know, any business benefits from automation: no matter what platform you use, the overall results get better if you can quit manual jobs.

When you don't need to create reports manually, you can focus on other tasks. Moreover, if the reports are created with the help of software, there is a lower risk of human mistakes. Thus the numbers will be more accurate.

2. The quick finding of the owner

It's one of the industry trends that can hardly be applied to human healthcare. The matter is that pets frequently have several owners. With the help of custom veterinary management software, you can add the contacts of all associated owners. With the help of electronic records, it will be easier for you to contact pet owners.

3. Tracking patient activity

In veterinary medicine, it's important to track patient activity all the time. However, without the help of software, it becomes a big problem: a clinic needs more staff who will put records on every patient. Let's imagine the situation when a surgeon needs the records. But, the analysis and diagnostic tests were taken at different times, and the records haven't been delivered yet.

Implementation of the management system would solve this situation. In the human healthcare market, patient activity is tracked with the help of software, and it demonstrates great results.

4. Pet-owner portal

If you want to create a veterinary practice management system that satisfies the needs of both your clinic staff and every customer, remember the latest trends of pet-owner portals.

By adding it, your customers will get full access to information about their pets, as well as notifications, scheduling and rescheduling options, and any other tool that helps them to monitor the health of their pets.

5. Secure pet profile databases

We're sure: you have plenty of patients who are visiting your clinic regularly. And you are keeping records on all of them. Digitalizing pet profile databases, you will create a space for your clinic where all the information about every patient will be kept securely and organized according to your preferences.

Security is the biggest trend for any industry, and we insist you remember that.

Benefits of veterinary management software

Even if you have decided that you're ready to develop veterinary management software, you probably still have some hesitations. However, the benefits of creating veterinary management software will prove to you that you've made the right choice.

You will finally start to use EMR

In human healthcare, EMR is obligatory for any clinic and veterinary. Even the basic veterinary management software will help you organize and systematize information about patients. You will get full and quick access to:

• history of diseases
• doctor's prescriptions
• treatment history
• behavior
• surgery details
• scheduled and past visits
• diagnostics results
• vaccinations

Using this information, you will be able to make better decisions on your following actions with this patient.

You will keep your staff under control

Veterinary is a business with a high number of employees. Custom veterinary clinic management system also can cover the needs of controlling your staff. For example, you will be able to track the workload of every employee and monitor their activity.

Remember that it is important to create a personal account for every employee to protect your data from breaches and get better insights on your team.

You will improve the scheduling and rescheduling of appointments

Many vet clinics still do not use any software to schedule or reschedule appointments. Of course, it leads to various problems, and each problem that happens affects your business.

Well-designed software will help you to be more flexible with appointments. You can distribute them among your veterinarians or issue some of them to particular vet doctors.

You will improve the client experience

Clients are already used to the features that human clinics have. In many cases, they do not expect that vet clinics will offer them the same level of service. However, if you show them that even a vet clinic can also provide them with access to EMR and all health information about their pets, they will be extremely satisfied.

Moreover, they would rather choose your clinic over any other, as the level of customer engagement and loyalty will be higher.

You will streamline all the processes

If you are ready to grow your clinic, a veterinary hospital management system is what you need. It will help you to cover all processes: from the management of the team to tracking inventory. You will get more time to improve your practice while all technical issues are under control.et more time on improving your practice, while all technical issues will be under control.

Key features of custom veterinary practice management software

In veterinary practice management software development, you need to remember: certain features are the core of the vet industry. We've collected five of the most important ones. Of course, if you have some particular business goals that these features do not cover, feel free to contact us. We will help you define what exactly you need, and of course, we will help you with the development and realization! It is worth noting that the features described below are used in almost all veterinary management solutions, so this list is exhaustive.

Reporting and analytics

It's easy to grow your business when you have an understanding of the current situation. With advanced reports and analytics, you will get regular insights that will help you make decisions quickly.

Secure access to information

Invest in high security of the information you keep in your records. Your software must protect data and sensitive information from the breach. Otherwise, you will always be at risk.

Accounting and invoicing

This feature will help you understand how much money you earn and how much money you spend on inventory and medicine. Also, it will help you organize invoice processing from your customers.

Different modes for communication

Your clients want to have an option to schedule and reschedule their appointments. They also want to have an option to consult their vet online. By integrating different modes of communication in veterinary software solutions, like chats and messages, it becomes possible.

Notifications and alerts

Make sure that your software allows you to send notifications and alerts. For example, you can send notifications to your doctors with reminders of the scheduled appointment and even the details of the patients.

Veterinary practice management system development challenges

Digitalization has never been an easy process, and for veterinary appointment scheduling system development it’s also complicated. The challenges are different, but there are 3 of them that have the biggest effect on the industry,

• Custom veterinary management software needs time and money for development.

Software development is a money and time-demanding process that results in cost and time effective systems. If you have decided to create software, be ready that the process will take several months, especially if you want to develop and integrate some complicated features. And of course, it will take money. But remember, as a result, you will get a platform that will save hours of the workload of thousands of dollars.

• It's difficult to find a team to build an online veterinary management system.

Veterinary practice management system development is less popular than the development of systems for human healthcare organizations. Few companies have experience in creating software for vet clinics. Fortunately, there are some, like Softermii, that already know the peculiarities of the market and are ready to implement best practices in the development of software for the veterinary industry.

• Maintenance is complicated

Creating software is just the first step. Maintenance is the second one, and it requires even more time, as maintenance and updates should be implemented all the time. If you created software five years ago, you still need to work on it. We at Softermii prefer to conduct maintenance jobs for our delivered project to make sure that everything works perfectly.

Softermii’s experience: PetRealTime

Our team does veterinary web development on a regular basis, and here is one of our case studies.

PetRealTime is a telehealth application that ensures communication between veterinarians and clients. It helps to make veterinary healthcare more accessible: with video meetings and the possibility to find the best veterinarian in any country or region.

Main challenge

When working on the PetRealTime app, we faced the biggest problem: none of the existing frameworks ensured the high quality of the videos, which was the main feature of the app. We've decided to implement WebRTC technology, which was quite new and had certain problems with an implementation that we needed to fix.

Best solution

As we needed WebRTC to reach the business goal of the app, we decided to fully master it and refine it into the technology that we could use for our telemedicine app. Therefore, we've developed a cloud-based app that has brought telemedicine to a new level.

We also create UX/UI for the application to ensure the best user experience.

Results

All in all, the PetRealTime application is now:

• available for different platforms
• available for different browsers
• compliant with international health regulations
• safe and secure to confidentially consult with a physician.

Time to build a veterinary management system for your clinic

Veterinary practice management software development brings the service of the vet industry to a new level. Clinics and hospitals save their time with the help of automated options, and clients get a chance to schedule appointments or contact their veterinarian doctors whenever they want. Client engagement and loyalty are increasing, as well as the loyalty of clinic staff.

Of course, certain challenges can prevent you from developing the software, like the price and time you need to spend on it. But we promise: there are many ways to overcome these challenges. We at Softermii always look for the best solution: we create software that meets your business and financial goals.

Give us a call or drop a message, so we can discuss creating software for your vet clinic!