Vet Team Members Get an Essential Assist
from a New Drug-Monitoring Chart
By Regina Toman, Veterinary Assistant
 Often, the lobby is full, treatment is buzzing with activity and the phone is ringing
nonstop. On the other end of the ringing phone are clients calling for refills of their
pet’s medications. Are you prepared for what’s next? There are some easy steps
to ensure the perfect conclusion to this common situation. IDEXX’s “The Practical
Approach to Drug Monitoring” chart  , also known as the DM chart, has taken the
guesswork out of the most common call you get at
your practice on a daily basis. Aside from the obvious
number of refills left on a prescription, how does your
staff approach the subject of refilling a prescription
for a patient that needs long-term monitoring through
blood tests? In this situation, it is critical that your staff
confidently communicates the need for blood tests
as well as proper blood-monitoring protocol. IDEXX’s
new DM chart is a key tool in this process. The new
chart is easy to read and at a glance gives busy staff
members the answers they need to properly schedule
blood tests for patients. The DM chart details the top
seven medical conditions and the common classes
of drugs used in their treatment.
The intuitive chart also allows you to quickly scan it to
identify any time constraints for blood testing, and find the most common
organ systems affected by each class of medication, other than the one targeted
for treatment. The other essential piece of information found on the chart is the
current protocol for ongoing testing. For example, if your patient is taking an NSAID
for osteoarthritis, in less than a minute you can quickly see that the patient needs
to have an NSAID panel at 14 days, and then every 6 months. This chart helps staff
members schedule the appropriate time for the test and assemble the proper tubes
and amounts needed for the sample.
The charts are available as posters or standard sheets of paper printed from IDEXX’s
Web page, www.idexx.com/animalhealth/analyzers/longterm_monitoring.
The chart should be kept in a central location, easily seen by all team members.
Smaller versions should be kept at all work stations, especially near the phones.
It’s a great tool and life saver. In addition to displaying a patient’s drug monitoring
protocol, the DM chart is the keystone in any staff training program.  The DM chart
offers a wide array of staff training topics. Topics for discussion include the major
organ systems, which can easily branch into common disease processes. The new
chart also utilizes graphic symbols that represent the common organ systems. The
symbols, at a glance, draw the reader’s eye to the area of their
interest, such as the heart symbol for heart disease. The key
symbols are found throughout the chart as they identify
the organ systems affected by the medications
commonly used to treat these conditions. The new
DM chart also allows your doctors to customize the
chart by adding other drug choices as new or
different treatment options become available.
In the ever-changing field of veterinary pharmacology, it is
important to keep your staff afloat in a sea of changes. It is important that your staff
members have a tool at their fingertips, like the DM chart, that is easy to comprehend,
easy to discuss and easy to update. The new DM chart is ultimately important in
educating your veterinary team members so they will create client compliance through
their well-versed confidence. The DM chart serves as a beacon of light for busy staff
members whose main goal is to serve and safeguard their patient-client relationships.
We owe it to them to follow the Hippocratic oath and “do no harm.” Long-term drug
monitoring can help us fulfill that promise.
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