Closing Services

Implementation Date: 1/14/2016

Date of Last Revision: 1/14/2019

Next Review Due: 3/2023

 

Reviewed by VTH Administrative Team: N/A

Reviewed by VTH Board: 1/14/2016

 

Reviewed by Legal Counsel: N/A

Reviewed by Biosecurity Subcommittee: N/A

Subject to modification by the VTH Director without approval.

Policy

The Veterinary Teaching Hospital (VTH) is committed to providing comprehensive veterinary service for clients and patients, while offering quality educational opportunities to veterinary students and house officers. Service areas within the VTH will be open for service and teaching unless extenuating circumstances exist that cause a service to close. The decision to close must be approved prior to service closure and must provide an alternative plan for continuing service and teaching activities as outlined in this policy.

Guidelines

Full Coverage Services: 
The service will never close without a plan, approved by the Hospital Board, to provide for patient care, consultations, and student instruction.

• Prior approval must be obtained from the Hospital Board, which includes the Department Head and Chief of Staff, to close a clinical service with full coverage.
• The Hospital Board will consider Hospital needs, the feasibility of the proposed plan, and the validity of the need for service closure when reviewing requests.
• Approved plans may include, but are not limited to, provisions for House Officer coverage of clinical services if appropriate, locum hires if funds are available to pay locum salary, self-directed instruction of students for a limited period of time, re-positioning students with other similar rotations.
• The Department Head alone has the authority to modify faculty appointments to provide for clinical service coverage in order to meet Hospital needs.
  

Partial Coverage Services: 
The service will be open 60% of the time or more, consistent with the clinical appointment of the Faculty/Instructor.

• Faculty/Instructors of partial coverage services should have protocols defined and in-place to provide for patient care and client communication when the service is closed
• When the sole Faculty/Instructor is off-clinics, time dedicated to consultation work will be 10 hours per week spread over the week at the discretion of the clinician.
  o Consultations will not be required of the Faculty/Instructor when on scheduled leave.
• Leave for single-service Faculty/Instructors will be scheduled during off-clinic times.
  o If no off-clinic time is provided for, the Faculty/Instructor will schedule leave as necessary and as per department protocol.

Guidelines for Closing Student Rotations

• Clinical services will be open for student rotation instruction when the service is open, as detailed above.
• As stated above, students assigned to clinical services that have reduced service or are approved for closure will need to be provided for in the service’s plan for closure to be considered by the Hospital Board.

Procedure (if applicable)

Closing Full or Partial Coverage Services:

• Requests to close a service will be directed to the affected service’s Section Head. The Section Head will bring the plan to the Hospital Board for consideration.
• The Department Head and Chief of Staff must be notified directly and immediately if disruption of service due to emergency circumstances occurs.

Closing Student Rotations:

• Whenever possible, the decision to close a rotation to student instruction will be made and communicated to the Office of Academic and Student Affairs no less than one year prior to rotation closure to avoid students being scheduled on closed rotations.
• Students assigned to clinical services that have reduced service or are approved for closure will be provided for in the service’s plan for closure to be considered by the Hospital Board.

Reduced Service and/or Gift Days:

• All services of the VTH will be expected to be OPEN during reduced service days (regardless of whether these are gift days or not). The service chief and service members may then determine the scope of the services provided. Services that wish to ‘close’ must make a case for why and present a plan for patient care/student instruction as outlined above
  
  

Definitions (if applicable)

Full Coverage Services: Services staffed by 2 or more Faculty/Instructors with a combined clinical teaching and service commitment equal to or greater than 100% are full coverage services.

Partial Coverage Services: Services staffed by a single clinical Faculty/Instructor with a clinical teaching and service commitment less than 100% are partial coverage services.

Veterinary Teaching Hospital (VTH): The collective clinical services of the Large Animal Clinic, Midwest Equine, the Small Animal Clinic, and the Veterinary Medicine South Clinic.