Dr. Lauren Jones shares her expert insights on embracing change positively and engaging team members in the evolution of practice operations. Tune into the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast as Dr. Andy Roark chats with Dr. Lauren Jones, a dynamic veterinary practice owner and Director of Veterinary Medicine at Shepherd Veterinary Software. This episode dives into the exciting realm of change management within the veterinary profession. Whether you’re managing a small team or leading a large practice, this conversation provides valuable perspectives on making change work for you and your team. Don’t miss this insightful episode sponsored by Shepherd Veterinary Software!
You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!
This episode is brought to you by Shepherd Veterinary Software!
LINKS
Shepherd Veterinary Software: https://www.shepherd.vet/
Dr. Lauren Jones: linktr.ee/doctajones
Dr. Lauren Jones on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-jones-81a22b20/
Referenced Article: https://www.veterinarypracticenews.com/veterinary-medicine-is-at-a-crossroad-which-direction-will-you-go/
Dr. Know-It-All Card Game: https://drandyroark.com/in-the-know/
Dr. Andy Roark Exam Room Communication Tool Box Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/
Dr. Andy Roark Charming the Angry Client Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/charming-the-angry-client/
Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop
All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Lauren Jones, VMD, Director of Veterinary Medicine at Shepherd Veterinary Software, is a seasoned veterinarian, practice owner, and industry innovator. A University of Pennsylvania graduate, she excels in transforming veterinary practices, driving growth, and enhancing efficiency. Dr. Jones combines clinical experience with business acumen, passionately empowering veterinarians to embrace technology, combat burnout, and rediscover their joy. Her insights fuel innovative software solutions that help practices thrive and deliver exceptional care.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome everybody to the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I got a good one for you today. I am here with Dr. Lauren Jones, who is a practice owner, and she’s a remote practice owner. I talk about that a little bit when we get into it. She’s also the director of veterinary medicine at Shepherd Veterinary Software. We’re talking about change and change management, and she’s got this idea that she’s been writing and speaking a lot about, and that’s kind of how I sort of became aware of her.
She’s really got this idea that, that we can find joy in change and change is coming. And so she’s got a really great perspective on how to get a team on board with change. How to look at technology, how to feel good about the fact that our profession is not going to be the same thing in five years that it was five years ago.
And so anyway, we, we sort of start off and talk about that and what that looks like and and really get into sort of the nuts and bolts about communicating change to the team, figuring out what needs to change and what doesn’t and sort of managing change throughout the process. So anyway, it’s a really fun episode.
I hope you guys will like it. This episode is made possible by Shepherd Veterinary Software. Guys, let’s get into the episode.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter: This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to the Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome to the podcast. Dr. Lauren Jones. How are you?
Lauren Jones: I’m doing great. How are you?
Dr. Andy Roark: I’m doing really well. I’m doing really well. It has been it has been a fun summer. It has been a lot going on. It’s been sort of an interesting summer for me, philosophically, I think. I, I, I’m rolling a lot of stuff around in my mind right now.
And I kind of, I, I, this is why I sort of wanted to have you on the podcast and, and talk to you a little bit. So, for those who don’t know you, you are a veterinary practice owner. You have an owner outside of Philadelphia, right?
Lauren Jones: Yep. That’s right. In a Westchester, right? Right outside of Philly. That’s hometown for me.
Dr. Andy Roark: You are also the Director of Veterinary Medicine at Shepherd Veterinary Software. And so you like to wear a lot of hats.
And I I, became aware of you through some of the writing that you do. So you have written for Veterinary Practice News. I saw you on the podcast Veterinary Life Reimagined, things like that.
And you’re, you’re writing a lot, Lauren, about change and embracing change and enjoying change and the reason I say it’s sort of been a philosophic summer for me was I, you know, I went to the AVMA convention earlier this summer and really being there was, was kind of shocking for me in a lot of ways and that our industry is radically changing. You know, the, the exhibitors in the exhibit hall, a lot of them are the same players that have been there, but there’s a lot of new players.
There’s been a lot of consolidation. There is everybody’s beating the drum around artificial intelligence. There’s a ton of stuff around mental health and work life balance and, you know, you’ve got corporate consolidators that now have hospitals and they’re, you know, they’re sort of changing what work schedules look like, things like, and I think a lot of people, myself included, are kind of standing here, and I’m going, Lauren, I don’t think I really know exactly what the profession is going to look like in two to five years.
I really mean that when I say it. And so, I saw this as an opportunity. I wanted to get you in and sort of talk about sort of, your take on, you know, you wrote an article in Veterinary Practice News, Veterinary Medicine is at a Crossroad. Which Direction Will You Go? And I thought, yeah, I think I’d like to sort of talk to her about that.
So, as I’m kind of getting my, my, my head around this, you know, Do you, do you agree with I guess sort of this, this take that the profession overall is shifting when you say that medicine at a crossroads. Tell me what that kind of looks like in your mind.
Lauren Jones: Absolutely. I think there’s, there’s so much change happening and I think a lot of it is, is really good. And I, so I’m a 2010 grad. So I’ve been out for almost 15 years and, and I guess for me and my journey, at some point I went well, wait, stop. Why, you know, why do we always, or not always, but frequently put our happiness kind of to the back burner?
You know, we are constantly taking care of our animals, the patients and the humans that, you know, some somewhere along the way It felt like it was a luxury for us to find joy in our lives and define happiness You know, we’re so much compassion fatigue and, and burnout. And I know those are buzzwords. But you know, I, I know that’s, I’ve been in that case.
I’ve felt those feelings. And I think I’ve really started to kind of evaluate my life, my career and my hospital. So we have, you know, staff around like 12, 12 or so staff members and kind of how, you know, we can’t all leave vet med and do kind of nontraditional things. We have to have boots on the ground, you know?
So, you know, we are at this crossroads and so trying to start, fighting for, you know, us. And I don’t want to sell to the big guys. I want, I want to be a local, you know, veterinarian owned hospital. And I want my staff to like coming into work. And we have to start looking at these things to say, what can we do to make it better, to find joy, to set boundaries.
To embrace change really and to make it better for ourselves, our staff members and ultimately it’s, it’s coming back to our patients. So we have better patient care, better outcomes for our patients. It’s kind of, for me, kind of all wrapped up into that box.
Dr. Andy Roark: The thing that really hooked me on you was when I realized that you own a practice on the East Coast and you live in Scottsdale, Arizona. And it’s not, it’s not a mega corporation, you know, like it’s just, it’s a, you said it went about 12 employees overall, something like that. And so imagine having a vet practice, got 12 employees and you live multiple, it’s like a six hour flight to get to where you are from your own practice.
And so you. I love people who are innovating and you clearly don’t play by a lot of the imaginary rules that a lot of other people have made for themselves. And when I sort of read your writing, I think imaginary rules is kind of a thing for you. You, you sort of sort of
spot this and say, we all, we all just act like these are chiseled in stone somewhere and, and they’re not.
And so I, I, I think that’s, that’s fascinating. And. think it’s important to call that out when we say, well, this is a person who’s doing things differently and kind of making her own way. So, I really like that. When, when I sort of talk to people about sort of change in the industry and, and kind of try to make the profession better, the impression that I’ve gotten is that we’re going through a period of rapid change and that scares the crap out of a lot of people.
And there, there, there tends to be two reactions to this rapid change. It’s, it’s fear that to dig in their heels and really, you know, kind of hold on to what they have and say, we’ve got to stop this. We have got to hunker down. We have got to hold what we have. And then it’s sort of fear mixed with optimism of, We’ve got to evolve because the world is changing around us.
You know, I’ve used the analogy of we’re on the side of a volcano and it’s erupting gang and we can dig into the piece of ground we’re on now and hope we don’t get washed over or we can look around and say, well, we need to pick up and move a little bit. And, you know, people don’t realize you know, volcanoes have some of the most fertile soil
ever after they erupt. And so
there’s opportunity in, in the change. So, yeah, I don’t know. Tell me, tell me a little bit about, does, do you, do you see those reactions? Do you see that split between hold what we have and, and, and we’ve got to change? Or am I, am I being
not as nuanced as I should be?
Lauren Jones: no, you’re absolutely right. And especially, you know, working with Shepherd and working with clinics who are going from you know, paper record systems to, you know, our, the cloud based system. It can be really scary. And I, you know, I’ve been a Shepherd user for six years. So I went through this transition with, I had two hospitals at the time.
I’ve since sold one of those. But you know, it, it can be so, so scary. And I think The best thing we can do, you know, I like to ask my, my staff, bring it in and I create a culture where we’re all inclusive and it’s not me, the dictator, handing down what we’re going to do. It’s, hey, it’s asking the staff what they want to do having them get that buy in to the change and say, Hey, you know, let’s get back to, you know, you’ve probably heard, you know, some of the writing things or my podcasts that I’ve done.
I talk about The very first hospital, somebody told me, well, that’s the way we’ve always done it. And that I fight against that because it’s, I think that really hinders our growth and our change. So by saying, Hey, you know, Susie, what do you think? You know, I have an amazing staff. They have such great.
You know, ideas and I want to hear, you know, from them and incorporate them with what they want. And I can’t wait to, to, to do this with my staff, but really sitting down and asking them, you know, hey, what is something that you that we’re doing right now that isn’t working?
What’s something that you wish we could bring in? You know? But also telling them, Hey, we’re going to do this and it’s going to be a trial phase. And I love that. I think it really gets into the philosophy, the philosophy in people’s mind of, we’re going to have this change and whether that’s switching over to, you know, different EMR, different PIMS, whether that’s, you know, stopping nail trims as a hospital or whatever, you know, small, like it can be small, it can be big, but to say, Hey guys, let’s try this.
And I think you get more buy in when you’re not coming at it from that dictator-like perspective and having that. You know, hey, if it doesn’t work in six months, let’s reevaluate and not being afraid to fail. Cause I think some of the greatest things have come out of, you know, failure and going, okay, that didn’t work.
Cool. We’re going to move on and we’ll figure it out next time.
Dr. Andy Roark: Is, is that one of your main approaches, because I was going to ask, you know, you obviously are someone who, who likes to change your practice and you, you keep rolling out new things. I, I think a lot of people say, well, how do you get the team to buy in? Because a lot of, every time we have this split, right, whether it’s, I’m afraid I’m going to grab on, even if you’re the practice owner, even if you’re the medical director or the regional medical director, whatever, You might say, well, we want to embrace change, I want to embrace change, but every individual person is still going to have a reaction to this change, and some of them are going to want to hold what they have, and I think we’ve all seen that when we’ve said, we need to change what we’re doing in practice, we need to change what we’re doing as a team, and then you have One or two or five people who really don’t want to change.
So, I, I, I love your idea of, like, guys, we’re going to try this. I think that that’s a really good way of lowering the stakes. Is that sort of the main way that you focus on messaging changes coming to your team? Or are there other things that you feel like that you communicate that kind of help to, to get them to, I don’t know, give you a chance?
Lauren Jones: Yeah, great. That’s a great question. I think a lot of it is just to get their buy in, asking them, you know, trying to show them. What the benefits are, but also being flexible and saying, Hey, it’s okay if you don’t like it, but I, you know, appreciate you if you can try it because I think the benefits are going to be X, Y, and Z.
You know, trying to identify their pain points. And a lot of times that’s, you know, Hey, I just can’t get through of an appointment without, you know, getting all, yeah, I can’t get through an appointment with and complete my records in the same time. And so, Hey, try this. And I really think I’ve gotten a lot of buy in from my staff and You know, we’ve been together long enough that, you know, having a little bit of that relationship under our belts, you know, hey, trust me, I promise I’m not gonna, you know, force you guys to do anything.
Trust me that I have your best intent, you know, your, your best interest at heart and, and trying to get them to kind of do it collaboratively. And we’ve had lots of culture meetings. And I think it, for me, it goes back to those values too, of, you know, what do we want to be as a hospital? And, you know, Then guiding all of our decisions.
Well, if we do this, it’s going to go back to better patient care and high quality care. If we do that, then that’s going to be better for our work life balance. And so trying to tie all those together. So we really have a purpose in what we’re doing.
Dr. Andy Roark: Tell me more about how you talk to the staff about what’s working and what’s not working. So, so walk me through kind of what those conversations look like. Is this, is this a whole team discussion? Is this a couple of sort of thought leaders inside your practice you have these conversations with? I really love this idea of including the staff into the, into where we’re taking the practice or how we’re going to operate our team.
I think that makes a lot of sense. Help me with the specifics of how you do that in a way that some people are going to come with ideas that you’re going to be like, we’re not doing
that. And so, like, how do you Talk to me about what this, about what this conversation looks like.
Lauren Jones: Well, I think it starts with a You know, kind of an open door policy, right? You know, that I’m, even though I’m remote, right? I, we use Slack and all of these other ways for communication. No question is too silly or, you know, small. So it starts there, but then I have, especially since I’ve tried to evolve as a practice owner and what I’m doing now isn’t what I was doing five years ago.
But that’s what I love. I don’t want to be stagnant. I don’t want to be that, that old, you know, owner. So now what I’ve been doing is every few months, and sometimes it’s spurred on by maybe some you know, inner office. You know, sometimes it’s spurred on by that when I’m starting to get the feel the vibes that maybe, hey, we got to, we got to check in on some of our culture and our values.
I try to do some of it, you know, all of us at once. So it kind of an open air forum situation, but I think it’s, that’s not great for everyone. If you’re a little bit more introverted, if you have a little, you’re, you’re shy, you don’t want to get you know, the, the boss is upset. I want to have some sort of anonymous way method for them to do that as well.
So, I’ll also send them You know, like a different surveys just through Google, things that I’ve created, questions that I’ve come up with, you know, like, where are you in your journey? Where do you want to go? How are we best supporting you in that and saying you can put your name on it or you don’t have to.
You can type it all out and leave it for me. I’ll never know who it is. So I think having multiple methods for them to get that information to me and to talk about it. It is really important to help every person because every part of my team from the CSRs to my vets to my assistants, they really have some, they bring something to the table and I want to hear from them.
So I think it’s, it’s a variety of methods really.
Dr. Andy Roark: I, I really like the way you sort of integrate questions about them and where they’re going and, and how can we support you on your journey with what do you think we should be doing differently as a team and where are we going? I think that, I think that you kind of have to have to do both of those things, right?
Like it’s it’s hard to build a trusting relationship when all you talk about is how does, how does our practice do things differently? I think, I think that, I think you walk that line really well. Are there, are, Are there buckets that the staff seems to be most excited in working on? What I mean is, like, it seems to me that you’re talking to your team, there are certain things that probably come up a lot, or areas of the practice that come up a lot, where they seem motivated for change, and there’s probably areas that you don’t hear a whole lot about.
So, like, I don’t know. Are, are, are, Our cleaning protocols, like how we do the laundry, probably not something they’re like innovating on, on a regular basis, but I don’t know, I suspect team scheduling is something that we hear a lot about. And so talk to me a little bit about that. What are the general buckets that the staff seems most willing to engage on and where they see the most value and sort of evolving what they’re doing?
Lauren Jones: I love when I talk to my staff, I’m always amazed because I get, I’m surprised by the answers sometimes in a great way. I think they’re often looking to take on more responsibility or they’ve, like I said, they have these great ideas and I’ve given them a forum and they say, you know, I’d really like, you know, my last hospital, we had this monitoring device you know, what do you think about, you know, and going, Hey, yeah, let’s try that.
I love it. And having them go, really? We can, you know, and so I, I’ve really found watching people take on you know, Hey, I want to take over the website or social media posting. And Hey, yeah, run with that. I love it when people want to do more and grow in their own role. So I think that’s a huge bucket is them taking on more.
And that’s not me saying, all right, Kendra, you have to do the social media posts now. It’s them coming to me with. Let me do this. I want to do more. I want to, you know, be more fulfilled. And so I think that’s, that’s a great one. Technology is definitely a place that we are always trying to be more efficient more productive if we can automate it you know, the, the more, the better, you know, and really I always tell them, of course, our job is getting, you know, is patient care, but it’s really, I want my stuff to get in, get out and get home.
So, you know, it’s, it’s, how can we do this? Treat the most, as many patients as we can at our high quality, the level of medicine that we’ve established for ourselves and our patients, but also get home. You know, we’re, we’re done at 530. I want you out, you’re out of the door as soon as possible. Because my keeping myself happy and letting them get to the soccer games and the recitals.
I think that’s, that’s what it’s about, but it’s how do we get more efficient and how do we, you know, have conversations around that?
Dr. Andy Roark: I think we’re all getting really used to being surveyed. You know, I, I, I just get absolutely spammed by every hotel. If I go to a hotel, they will email me multiple times and ask me to talk about my feedback for them. And I just, I think we all live in that world. But I think most of us are also getting really used to being asked for our feedback and then not ever seeing anything come out of that, you know, out of that conversation, that dialogue.
I think you blow people’s minds. When they say, oh, you know, there’s this thing and maybe if we had it, things would go more smoothly and you’re like, all right, let’s order one and see how it goes. And they, it, it’s shocking to me. I don’t know there’s anything you can do that’s more encouraging to people than actually listen to them and then do the thing that they’re, they’re for.
And talk is cheap. It’s easy to be like, no, I really want to hear from you guys. Some of those simple things really matter. my friend Stephanie Goss is a practice manager and She, she tells a story about she went into a new practice and she was just hired as the manager. And on the first day she goes up to the front desk and she says, What can I do to make your lives easier?
And they were like, this printer is killing us. And she immediately went to Office Depot and bought a new printer for like 200 bucks and brought it
back.
Lauren Jones: It’s the small things.
Dr. Andy Roark: It was, it is a small thing, but it was a significant headache for them, and she was like, Alright, here you go, new printer, and they were immediately like, Oh, we’re dealing with somebody who gets things
Lauren Jones: done.
I love it. And it’s about checking in like that, you know, cause I remember there was a time, one of my staff members. You know, you pick up a little vibe and I’m like, Hey, are you all right? Checking in? Everything okay today? And they’re like, this chair, it’s just, it stinks. It just falls back. And, and I’m like, let’s get a new chair.
What do we do? Like, you know, like what? And they’re like, again, they’re like, you make their day and you’re like, Oh, so I’ve, you know, I try to check in more often so that like, don’t go six months in a broken chair. Like let’s fix it. You know, I think that’s, it’s huge.
Dr. Andy Roark: What are the changes, so talking about, I’m going to get you to bump up, wear both of your hats here as a practice owner, then also as the as the director of veterinary medicine at Shepherd. What are the technological changes that you feel like the staff is most likely to get on board with?
What seems to really, what seems to resonate with them?
Lauren Jones: It goes back to being as efficient as we can. So really streamlining our day to day. And that’s, you know, why we went with Shepherd in the first place is because it’s, it’s really streamlined at everything is, is automated. And we talked about AI, we’ve got new AI in there too. So you can record your, your exam notes.
You know, speak into the, the right directly into the software. We’ve got a little, like a Diagnosis Assistant that can help with treatment recommendations, that type of thing. The Shepherd system is, is made by a vet. So it’s really how we think it’s a SOAP format. Just super intuitive and.
Anything that I can say, look at how easy this is. I have relief vets, relief nurses who come in on a regular basis And the first day, you know, they they just pick it up and that how easy that is, you know I think that really speaks to everything every change I make especially with technology is you know having them embrace that and seeing how it makes their lives easier and also Acknowledging, hey guys, it’s gonna be a little tough while we have, while we adjust to, to doing it a different way.
So give it a little time, and then this is how it’s gonna be so much better for you. And I think they’ve really embraced it once they go, oh, you’re right. It is easier. This is how I think, I don’t have to do it this hard way.
Dr. Andy Roark: I, this goes back to what you said at the very beginning when we were talking about, hey guys, we’re just going to try this. I think, I think one of the mistakes that we make in change management is this we sell people on the idea that this is going to make your life easier. And it’s, it’s not initially going to make your life easier.
At first, it’s going to be a headache because you’re going to have to figure out the new way to do it or what we’re going to have to get it set up while still doing the old thing that we used to do
until we make the switch. And so there, there is this, this pain point. But if you can tell people, Hey, we’re going to try this for a while.
And if it doesn’t work, you know, we’ll, we’ll change things, but we’re going to walk with me, I’m going to need you to do this three months, you know, or, or six months or whatever it is. But if you can get them just to go on faith for a certain amount of time, you can get through that pain point of integrating and then and then people go oh. No one no one likes the new software update the first day it comes out you have to be kind of forced into it Then you use it for a little bit and you go.
Okay. Yeah, this is this is better than what we
Lauren Jones: You’re, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And I think, you know, I, I, Shepherd is really you know, unique, in that our, all of our users, obviously, there’s always that, you know, learning phase, my, but my staff included, and another part, you know, somebody we partner with, I’ve done some webinars for them, they, they were, He called us the Tesla of PIMS and because, you know, Tesla owners, the only car owner, you know, they just want to talk to you about how great their Tesla is, right?
And he goes, I’ve never heard any other PIMS company say this. They, they, all they want to do, Shepherd users just want to talk about Shepherd and how great it is and how efficient and intuitive it is. And we’re like, Yeah, you know, I mean, case in point, I’ve been a user six years and here I am, you know, as their director of veterinary medicine as well because I believe in the product and the, the company in general.
So it’s really, I don’t know, it’s, I think technology leaning in technology is kind of like the one action item that I’ve, I also see the veterinary space going. So leaning more into technology, embracing those changes and, and really it just benefits us. And then again, at the end of the day, it’s our patient care and having the best, you know, patient experience.
Dr. Andy Roark: Shepherd’s brand building has really been pretty amazing. They are one of those companies that has that they have a tribe. They have a tribe who’s
Lauren Jones: Yeah. Oh yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: so that they’ve done that they’ve done that really really well. Dr. Lauren Jones, thank you so much for being here and talking through all this stuff with me. Where can people find you online? Where can they learn more?
Lauren Jones: thank you so much for having me on. It’s been an absolute pleasure. So I think easiest ways to find, to find me is on LinkedIn. So you can search my name, Lauren Jones. I’ve got a link at the top there to have all of the kind of contents recent podcasts, articles, blogs, webinars.
So LinkedIn and shepherd.vet, you can also get ahold of us that way as well.
Dr. Andy Roark: Sounds great. I’ll put links directly in the show notes so people can have them there as well. Thank you so much for being here. Guys, thanks for tuning in and listening. Take care of yourselves, everybody.
Lauren Jones: Thank you so much.
Dr. Andy Roark: and that’s it. That’s what I got for you. Thanks so much to Shepherd for making this episode possible. Thanks to Dr. Lauren Jones for being here and being such a great guest. She’s really fun and interesting. I could, I could talk to her for a long time. I just think She’s someone who is obviously trying things, and then trying different things, and trying different things.
And I every time I talk to her, she just she sort of drops this little thing about her life or how she runs her business from, you know, multiple states away, that I just go, Oh, I didn’t think you could do that. Oh, you can? Oh, okay. Why did I even think that was, that was not a possible thing? She just, she breaks the rules in the best way possible and I enjoy her.
So anyway, thanks to her for being here. Thanks to you guys for being here. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave us an honest review wherever you get your podcasts. Take care of yourselves, everybody. I’ll talk to you later on.
