April 6, 2020
Greetings to our referring veterinarians,
I am writing the third update to you regarding the COVID-19 situation and current Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center (LVMC) operations.
As veterinarians, we are uniquely trained to understand the serious nature of a pandemic, and to understand the essential importance of veterinary medicine to our communities and the importance of public health. Since February, the LVMC has been proactive in working with the ISU Incident Command for COVID-19 response. We have been able to react quickly to the rapidly changing situation with the latest information from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Iowa Department of Public Health.
I’m sure many of you have altered your operations in light of the COVID-19 situation. We have as well. We have excused our clinical-year students from the hospital, and are covering their duties with our staff, interns and residents. With no clients allowed into the building, we are using curb-side check-in of patients, telephone for client communications, and digital processing of paperwork. We have altered our biosecurity protocols to conserve PPE in case it is needed for our human healthcare colleagues.
Please be assured that LVMC is still open although we have limited our caseload in keeping with the AVMA recommendation to provide essential care for ill and injured animals and protect the health of animals that enter the food supply. Our services to production animals are operating as normal, to support the food supply chain. However, in our equine and small animal hospitals, we have cancelled elective procedures and restricted our caseload to emergencies.
Note that by emergency we mean more than trauma cases. The large and small animal Emergency Services will continue to see any sick or injured animal that needs evaluation. Examples of cases that will be accepted via the Emergency Service include: injuries (trauma, lacerations, wounds, broken toe nails etc.), gastrointestinal upset (vomiting, diarrhea, colic), respiratory disease, dystocia, urinary tract infection, abdominal or pleural effusion, among others. If there is any question regarding a patient or case, please call the ER to discuss with an Emergency clinician. Cases that will not be seen through the ER include routine care such as pet vaccinations, health certificates, heartworm screening, toe nail trims, and anal gland expression.
In addition to routine veterinary care for animals that enter the food supply and primary emergency care, we are still seeing animals requiring specialty care, but they are initially triaged through emergency, and only transferred for specialty care if they meet the criteria of emergency. These criteria include:
- Threat to patient life if surgery/procedure is not performed
- Threat of permanent dysfunction of extremity or organ system
- Uncontrolled pain or suffering
- Risk that the condition will rapidly worsen to severe symptoms
- Oncology emergency including Lymphoma
We are not turning away patients that arrive at LVMC. However, intake and triage is through our Emergency Service only. If they do not meet the criteria for hospitalization, we will provide triage and stabilization, but will not accept them as in-patients or transfers. However, our specialty services are all staffed and available to support you, the referring veterinarians. Please use us as an intellectual resource by calling our fully staffed front desk, and your question will be posted for the appropriate specialty clinician to answer.
Our hopes are that Iowa will be able to escape the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that we can begin to return to more normal operations quickly. Until then, we will continue to provide essential care for ill and injured animals, protect our food supply, and support our referring veterinarians and the state of Iowa.
Stephanie West DVM
Director of Hospital Operations