The story starts...

Once upon a time, four vets (Bec, Craig, Deborah and Raquel) who really liked and respected each other’s work decided to get together and create a different sort of veterinary practice.

The sort of practice that didn’t just have skilled vets, but one that made you feel good when you walked through the door, where you could have open and honest discussions about your pet with people who listened to you and valued your opinion, one that didn’t charge you for every little thing... the sort of practice we’d take our pets to if we weren’t vets.

In May 2017, the four vets bought Elwood and Albert Park Veterinary Clinics and there they found two other vets (Donald and Louise) and some lovely nurses who were keen to be part of that sort of practice too.

And that’s how the new Albert Park Vet  and Elwood Vet began.

 

So, how are we different?

Most vet practices are modelled on other vet practices. The way they look and the way they run is generally similar – whether large or small, red or green, your experience is pretty much the same. And that’s fine. But we’re not interested in offering you more of the same – we're sure we can do better than that.

Focus on good design

From our Elwood practice, you can see the direction we're taking. There, we’ve looked for inspiration (and stolen ruthlessly) from outside the vet world to create a beautiful and functional place that we can do our best work in and you’ll love to bring your pet to. Once Elwood is finished, we'll start on Albert Park – the clean aesthetic will be the same, although it will have a distinct look.

Focus on quality

When putting together our team, we didn't just want highly skilled people, we wanted people who would fit with our culture of continuous quality improvement. 

From human healthcare, we’ve adopted the Institute of Medicine’s six dimensions of quality and so all of us at Albert Park Vet always aim to provide care that is:

  • safe – we avoid harms to patients from the care that is intended to help them
  • effective – we provide services based on scientific knowledge to patients who could benefit from them and refrain from providing services to those who aren’t likely to benefit (we avoid under and over treatment)
  • pet and pet family centred – we provide care that is responsive to the individual needs of you and your pet and that respects your preferences and values
  • timely – we aim to minimise waits and harmful delays in providing care
  • efficient – we avoid waste, including waste of equipment, supplies, ideas and energy
  • equitable – we provide care that does not vary in quality based on personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, geography or socioeconomic status.

Focus on good decisions

Our pets rely on us to make good decisions for them.

But when it comes to decisions about your pet’s health, there is often no single ‘best choice’. Instead we typically have multiple options, each with potential benefits, harms, trade-offs and uncertainties.

Part of our job as vets is to provide you with useful and clear information that reflects:

  • the best available evidence
  • your pet’s individual circumstances
  • your personal opinions, preferences, values and priorities

Together we can use this information to make choices.

This is the process of shared decision making. (Nerd note: the evidence from human studies shows that shared decision making leads to better outcomes – it's not just being good people, it's about getting good results!)

Focus on excellent value

We hate up-selling too. We're not going to do that to you. Ever.

We believe that high quality care should be affordable. We've gone through the old Albert Park price list and reduced the cost of many services including consultation fees, vaccinations, spay and castration fees and dentals. 

 
We're different in ways that make you smile

We're different in ways that make you smile