2024 AAHA Community Care Guidelines for Small Animal Practice

Community care is a creative way of thinking about health care that mobilizes resources within a community and consists of four core principles: recognition of the urgency of access-to-care for the veterinary profession, collaboration within community networks, family-centered health care, and redefining the gold standard of care. The AAHA Community Care Guidelines for Small Animal Practice offer strategies to help busy veterinary practitioners increase access to care within their practice and community by optimizing collaborative networks. While these guidelines do not claim to provide exhaustive solutions to access-to-care issues, they propose a starting point from which private practices can explore and implement workable solutions for their community and their practice. Broadening the scope of care to reach all people with pets requires multimodal, collaborative, and creative solutions both within and outside of the veterinary profession. These solutions can begin with greater communication and collaboration between private veterinary practices and nonprofit veterinary practices, with the goal of keeping pets in their homes with their loving families as much as reasonably possible.