The American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) recently unveiled its 2024 Community Care Guidelines for Small Animal Practice. These are intended to redefine "gold standard" veterinary care and provide a blueprint for veterinary practices to innovate and expand their services.

As AAHA explained in its September 30 press release, the guidelines take a collaborative, community-centered approach that focuses on inclusivity and accessibility, while maintaining high-quality outcomes for patients. Recognizing the challenges veterinary teams face, particularly the moral distress of turning away clients due to financial constraints, the AAHA's new guidelines emphasize creative solutions to bridge gaps in care.

"While these guidelines do not claim to provide exhaustive solutions to access-to-care issues, they propose a starting point from which private practices can explore and implement workable solutions for their community and their practice," the guidelines state. "Broadening the scope of care to reach all people with pets requires multimodal, collaborative, and creative solutions both within and outside of the veterinary profession.

Artist Lili Chin designed Billie and Arthur for the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) as mascots for the 2024 AAHA Community Care Guidelines. (Courtesy of AAHA)

"These solutions can begin with greater communication and collaboration between private veterinary practices and nonprofit veterinary practices, with the goal of keeping pets in their homes with their loving families as much as reasonably possible."

Traditionally, gold-standard veterinary care-while not universally agreed upon-is often used to describe patient-level care that is the highest-quality or the best-practice approach, which is often, by default, associated with advanced and often costly treatment options, the guidelines authors say.

The new AAHA guidelines redefine "gold-standard" as veterinary care that integrates a spectrum of diagnostic and treatment options; connects to and listens to the pet caregiver's needs; and ensures evidence-based, high-quality services focused on safety and positive outcomes, regardless of race, gender, ability, socioeconomic status, and other factors.

Veterinary teams are encouraged to develop lists of local resources for referrals, foster collaborations with community partners, and appoint a dedicated community liaison within their practice to strengthen relationships and coordinate care.

Specifically, the guidelines advocate for practices to adopt a community-care model that leverages partnerships with local nonprofits, shelters, spay and neuter clinics, and animal welfare organizations. This approach aims to maximize available resources, eliminate gaps in care, and improve access for underserved populations.

A key tenet of the guidelines is the commitment to keeping pets with their families whenever possible. This family-centered approach aligns with efforts to mitigate barriers to care, such as financial or logistical challenges, ensuring pets receive the care they need without separation from their owners, the authors write.

The AAHA guidelines also promote the adoption of a spectrum of care philosophy, which encompasses a wide range of tools and strategies, from basic interventions to more advanced options, empowering practices to meet the diverse needs of their clients.

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