We’ve all been there; a vet check that has been completed but the laboratory work isn’t back yet; a sick stable mate’s culture results are not back and everyone in the barn is wondering whether the whole barn will be quarantined or whether preventive vaccinations may be needed; an “inconclusive” or “presumptive positive” drug test is holding up the proposed sale of a performance horse.
The laboratory your veterinarian uses can have a profound effect on your equestrian life. Because time often equates to money, delays can also be expensive.
A new veterinary laboratory aims to reduce those delays and focus some powerful new tools, developed for human medical laboratory testing, on the veterinary medical market.
VetExpress Laboratories is a new business venture spearheaded by a group of seasoned clinical laboratory professionals. Based in a logistically desirable location near Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport, this laboratory has been designed to expeditiously provide veterinarians with the critical laboratory data that they need to monitor, diagnose and treat the animals they care for. Using logistical tools and revolutionary new reporting systems designed for California’s largest privately-held medical laboratory, VetExpress will also provide actual laboratory data, along with understandable interpretive information, to the trainers, handlers and owners of show horses, if authorized by their veterinarian. Using newly-developed Internet reporting systems, VetExpress will make that data available as soon as the testing is completed in the laboratory.
The recent outbreak of rhinopneumonitis (equine herpes virus-1) in Wellington, Fla. (see story page 8) points up how vital laboratory data can be in critical situations. As a Florida Department of Agriculture spokesperson said in the midst of that crisis in that state, “We need to stick with the facts. And the facts are lab tests.” Getting laboratory data to the end user can be nearly as important as getting that data to the treating veterinarian, especially in a contagious outbreak like the EHV-1 situation.
This new venture is led by Gary Burkhartsmeier, a clinical laboratory bioanalyst and 35 year veteran of the medical laboratory industry. Gary has been chief executive officer and director of laboratory operations at several of California’s largest and fastest-growing medical laboratories over his career.
“We are really excited to be able to apply technological tools that our team has developed over decades of effort in the medical laboratory to solve many of the pressing needs of the equine community,” says Burkhartsmeier, whose daughter Maddie is an accomplished junior rider. “Internet ordering, specimen tracking, breakthrough molecular testing, highly automated microbiological systems and patient-centric Internet reporting systems provide operational efficiencies that most veterinarians have been seeking. Their ability to better serve show animal owners and trainers will cement client relationships for these forward-thinking veterinarians.”
For show animal owners and trainers, this new veterinary laboratory promises new services never before available that will inform, educate and save both time and money in addressing concerns that have previously caused delays in executing sales or reacting to a major health crises in the barn. Being better and more quickly informed about laboratory results that may have a profound impact on daily barn operations or speeding the completion of critical transactions are bound to have a positive financial impact for the clients of veterinarians utilizing these new VetExpress laboratory services.
Article provided by VetExpress. For more information, please visit www.vetexpresslab.com.