Emergency Care: Collaborating for Better Outcomes

SAEC has now been running a successful emergency service for pets in the southern region of Melbourne for almost 4 years. Over this time we have experienced rapid and successful growth, not only in emergency cases, but also in allied and complementary services such as surgery, cardiology, advanced imaging and physiotherapy. As the emergency service has matured, intelligent use of other services within the referral centre is leading to ever-better outcomes under the circumstance of emergency presentations.

The role of the emergency centre is now evolving, both at SAEC and also in the veterinary market as a whole. Just as general practice is taking a more integrated approach to care with regard to referral and specialist services, so too is the emergency department at SAEC.

As well as providing fully staffed comprehensive out-of-hours emergency service, SAEC is increasingly making use of internal advanced imaging referrals, emergency cardiology workups, specialist surgical opinions and consultation with physiotherapists for ICU cases.

In moving beyond the standard ‘emergency’ role, significant work behind the scenes has been done on ensuring that owners receive the highest quality information possible. Consultation with other departments in mapping treatment pathways has been hugely beneficial to this outcome.

This collaboration under appropriate circumstances has improved the emergency service in almost every aspect of its day to day function. For example, cardiac conditions now have the availability of full diagnostic cardiac ultrasound, CT scanning is at the fingertips of the emergency centre staff, full ICU physiotherapy assessments are readily accessible (just as is the norm in human ICUs) and complex emergency surgical conditions such as emergent spinal conditions can be referred in-house to a specialist surgeon without need for transport to another centre or delay in treatment.

Rather than spread the emergency service across several centres, SAEC has concentrated on providing a better and better service to clients who visit the Highett referral and emergency facility.

As the nature of referral and emergency medicine continues to change, so too will the nature of the emergency service at SAEC. We look forward to meeting the ever-changing demands of emergency medicine and informing referring vets and their clients of new improvements made to the service.

If you have any questions about the emergency service at the Southern Animal Emergency Centre, please do not hesitate to contact us on (03) 9532 5261.

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