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| Your veterinary hospital will display this image if they are AAHA accredited. |
Written by Nicole Gunkel, RVT
Some of you may have seen our post a few months back that we sent in our application for American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) Practice of the Year. Well, I have some exciting news that we recently found out that Animal Care Clinic is a finalist for Practice of the Year!!! We are all elated that we have made it as a finalist this year! It all started last spring, when in one of our regular veterinary periodicals there was an article about the first annual AAHA Practice of the Year awards. I read it and thought, why didn’t we hear about this? In my mind, Animal Care Clinic should be a shoe-in for this award! So I decided that when it was time to send in applications for the following year, we would be among them! AAHA will announce awards for first, second, third and two honorable mentions. We will find out where we stand in March at the AAHA conference in Toronto. So, keep your fingers crossed that we did as well as I know we can, first!
For those that are unfamiliar, let me tell you a little more about the American Animal Hospital Association, AAHA accreditation, and what it means to you as pet owners. AAHA was established in 1933 as an international association. They accredit animal hospitals throughout the U.S. and Canada. AAHA accredited hospitals undergo voluntary evaluations to be assessed on 900 standards in the areas of quality of care, diagnostic and pharmacy, management, medical records, and facilities. AAHA is known among veterinarians and pet owners for their standards. AAHA standards require hospitals to provide diagnostic services (x-ray and laboratory) to quickly diagnose pets, focus on quality of care in anesthesia, contagious diseases, dentistry, pain management, patient care, surgery and emergency care. Accredited hospitals have an onsite pharmacy and must also have medical records that are thorough and complete. You might be surprised how many places do NOT have thorough and complete records! For these reasons, it should be important to you that your pet is seen by an accredited hospital. There are many hospitals that do meet these standards, but have not gone through the evaluation. However, you do not have that guarantee unless your hospital can prove they are AAHA accredited. You can be confident that if you pet is taken to an AAHA accredited hospital they are more likely to be given top-quality care. The AAHA standards are also periodically reviewed and updated, so consistently accredited hospitals can stay on the leading edge of veterinary medicine and give the care your pet’s deserve.
If you would like to learn more about the American Animal Hospital Association, you can visit their websites at: http://www.aahanet.org/ or http://www.healthypet.com/. Their Healthy Pet website is built specifically for pet owners with helpful information on pet care, travel, fun stuff and even interactive pet stuff just for kids! They have an AAHA hospital finder, so you can locate the AAHA accredited hospitals nearest to your location. You can also connect with AAHA through Facebook!
Everyone at Animal Care Clinic is very proud of our AAHA accreditation. We have been accredited with AAHA since 1993 and have maintained our certification since that time. If you would ever like to talk to us about our AAHA accreditation, get a tour or have any questions at all, please contact us! We look forward to announcing how we fared as a finalist in the coming year!
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