Transforming Veterinary Healthcare Across Europe

Key Takeaways

A Growing Market Opportunity

Increased levels of pet ownership and greater levels of spend continue to drive growth within the pet care sector. Pet ownership increased dramatically in many areas during COVID - in Spain, ownership increased approximately 25%. Sheehan also adds, “average spending is continuing to grow with the level of sophistication and healthcare increasing.” The rising prevalence of the younger generations as consumers further supports the trend in increasing spend on pets as, according to Sheehan, younger generations tend to prioritize spending money on their pets before themselves.

Increased Support for Veterinarians

Sheehan shared her thoughts on what veterinarians look for in a pet healthcare partner. “They are in the profession…to care for animals and for pets… I think that when they look for a group, they're really looking for a group that will focus on helping them promote that. So that becomes really about training. And we have a training platform called One Academy that supports that.” Sheehan also highlighted an appetite for better professional and personal balance among veterinarians. UNAVETS has a shared services model that can free up time for clinical teams that no longer have to spend time on administrative tasks like accounting.

Opportunity of Veterinary Telemedicine

UNAVETS sees a B2B opportunity for veterinary telemedicine, “where you can have vets talking to each other about second opinion cases, or maybe with CT scans, or imaging radiology,” Sheehan said. “All of those elements have much more potential, we think, than consumer telemedicine.”

Changes on the Horizon: Training, Triage and Analytics

The global vet shortage will drive market developments globally, including changes in veterinary training (e.g. postgraduate training for specialties, nursing), B2B telemedicine (e.g. second opinions, CT scans) and triage. “I think that triage is going to fundamentally change, in terms of having trained nurses and technicians be able to support vets better,” Sheehan shared. Data analytics in veterinary healthcare will also continue to improve, with significant opportunity to create engagement and compliance for visits and medication.