VCA Animal Hospitals Creates IdeaPark for Enhanced Patient Care

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Press release: VCA Animal Hospitals

VCA Animal Hospitals has announced the creation of IdeaPark, a new, rotating group of forward-thinking, general practice hospitals within its network. VCA’s IdeaPark hospitals will continue to deliver excellent veterinary medicine and care today and incubate bold thinking for tomorrow. Veterinary care leader VCA – part of Mars Veterinary Health – helps care for more than 4 million pets each year.

“Our goal with IdeaPark is to develop and pilot new programs that can be put into action across the broader VCA hospital networks and, once proven, shared with the wider industry,” said Garrett Lewis, chief operating officer for VCA. “Through this focus on innovation, we have an opportunity to make a major contribution to our organization, and deliver on our responsibility to support our industry. We’re ready to address big challenges, take advantage of trends and pioneer new ways of doing business.”

In addition to delivering best-in-class care to their patients and clients, the Associates of VCA’s IdeaPark will concentrate on three areas:

• Increasing capacity to care for patients in a sustainable way;
• Improving convenience and optimizing efficiency for clients and care teams; and
• Reducing stress for clients, patients and hospital care teams.

Led by Vice President of Innovation Brendan Lynch and Senior Regional Operations Director – Innovation, Zander Bennett, DVM, the hospitals have access to the broader innovation team in Los Angeles, as well as the latest digital tools.

“We are starting to emerge from a long, challenging stretch of rapid change in our profession – having learned a great deal about what’s possible at VCA and within the industry,” said Brendan Lynch, VP of Innovation at VCA Animal Hospitals. “IdeaPark helps us create space for innovation where we can reimagine everything from how we provide a seamless digital and in-hospital experience for clients to how we use the physical space in our hospitals.”

VCA will rotate hospitals into this cohort on a two- to three-year basis to encourage new thinking to keep IdeaPark on top of addressing the most pressing challenges and opportunities within both VCA hospitals and the industry.

VCA Animal Hospitals operates more than 1,000 small animal veterinary hospitals in the United States, Canada and Japan. The hospitals are staffed by more than 4,500 fully qualified, dedicated and compassionate veterinarians to give pets the very best in medical care, of which over 600 are board certified specialists who are experts in areas such as internal medicine, oncology, cardiology, emergency and critical care, and surgery for animals. VCA Animal Hospitals provides a full range of general practice services to keep pets well and specialized treatments when pets are ill. As part of the Mars Veterinary Health family of brands, VCA is committed to the Mars Petcare purpose — A Better World for Pets.