Why We’re Here:
Over the past years we’ve seen a broad shift to providing more information to adopters about animal histories. Sometimes this means original intake type and a memo about how the animal ended up in the shelter, and often it is a detailed and structured medical history that the adopter can use to initiate effective veterinary care, get licensed, or take advantage of services.
We started with pdfs, and when shelters started to share so much data that they couldn’t reliably get through spam filters because the attachments were too big, we switched to a single email with a link to a page where adopters could download their own documents. When we heard enough times that people were then losing these files, we took the next step -- towards a live page that stores medical histories and other information about the animal that populates the first time adopters click the link.
What We’re Doing About it and When You Can Expect it:
We’ve turned the otherwise intimidating treatment sheets and medical histories into a page that looks more like a Facebook profile than a veterinary log.
This has a few major advantages:
- It’s easy to see what has been done (proof of rabies vaccination, etc)
- It’s easy to see what needs to be done next and when
- It is available on demand for the adopter whenever they need it (first vet visit, when boarding, etc)
- It is updatable by the adopter, so unlike a static pdf that starts to “age,” adopters now have a live medical record they can own and manage if they want to.
We expect to be able to release this as soon as next week. It will automatically populate vaccines at first, and over time will be able to populate more and more.
What Your Adopters Will Now See:
You will still be able to decide what documentation adopters will go home with, and they will still receive those documents in one email. But now adopters will also be able to see this:
For more details on the adopter experience, check out this FAQ.
What You Need to Do Differently:
You don’t have to do anything differently. Your workflows remain the same, except that we expect you’ll receive fewer requests for copies of this doc or that doc because they’re easier for adopters to keep track of.
We are proud of the work done to get us here. Special thank you to our Shelterluv teammates Matt and Brandon who built this over the course of several months. We will continue to develop this interface so adopters can make good care decisions for your animals.
As always, feel free to email us at help@shelterluv.com with any thoughts, suggestions, or feedback.