Disease Prevention on the Farm: Veterinary Client Patient Relationship (VCPR)

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- Having a veterinary client patient relationship, or VCPR, is a critical part of animal care and an important part of a good livestock program.

It benefits you, your livestock, and your neighbors.

- In this video, we'll learn what a veterinary client patient relationship is and how having this relationship can help to keep your animals healthy.

So what is a veterinary client patient relationship?

Simply put, it is a working relationship with your vet.

As the name implies, there are three parties in this relationship, your veterinarian, the client, you, and the patient, your animal or your herd.

- [Elizabeth] Having a formal VCPR means that you have established a relationship with a veterinarian before problems arise.

- [Hayley] In a VCPR, the veterinarian assumes the responsibility for making clinical judgments regarding the health of your herd and the client, that's you, have agreed to follow the veterinarian's instructions.

This means that you work with your veterinarian when your animals are healthy and develop plans to keep them healthy.

A veterinarian who knows your operation when the animals are healthy, can do a better job of treating them when an illness strikes.

- [Elizabeth] There are several benefits to a VCPR.

First, because you have an established relationship with the veterinarian, you are more likely to have access to medical treatment for your animals when they need it.

- [Hayley] Perhaps more importantly, a VCPR enables you and your veterinarian to build SOPs for vaccination and to monitor animal health, which could help you detect disease earlier and even prevent illness in your herd from occurring in the first place.

- A big part of early disease detection is knowing what problems the farm has faced in the past and the early signs of those problems, then ensuring everyone who works with the animals is trained to recognize those signs.

The VCPR veterinarian can be involved in all steps of this.

- Also, if your vet knows your animals and your activities, they can more efficiently diagnose disease.

For example, if you never purchase new animals and your animals only leave the herd to go to market, you run a closed herd.

In this case, if your animal shows signs of disease, diagnostics will first focus on what disease challenges you have faced in the past.

- [Elizabeth] But if you take animals to shows or fairs, your vet will likely need to cast a broader net to figure out what is wrong.

- As part of your VCPR, your vet may recommend that you undertake certain biosecurity activities to prevent or control diseases on the farm.

This not only benefits you and your animals, it helps protect your neighbors' animals as well.

Be sure to take advantage of this aspect of your VCPR and work with your vet to improve your biosecurity program.

- Biosecurity activities encompass three layers of protection, which your vet will help you understand and implement.

The three layers are physical protections, chemical protections, and finally, logical protections.

These three layers work together to create as many barriers as possible between your livestock and pathogens.

Through the VCPR, your vet may encourage you to implement actions from each of the three layers to protect your herd and other herds from diseases.

So there you have it, having a formal working relationship with your vet, known as a veterinary client patient relationship, helps you to know that you're doing everything you can to keep your animals healthy.

- Your VCPR helps you get access to medical care when your animals need it.

It helps develop programs to detect disease early.

And through preventative care and biosecurity, a VCPR helps prevent illness.

All of these contribute to our ultimate goal of ensuring the continued health of your animals.