Plan a team meeting on heartworm education

Whether your clients are chronic year-round heartworm prevention resistors or they're on high alert about the emergence of heartworm resistance, it's important for you and the rest of your team to stay current on the latest heartworm news and trends. Take a 10-minute break at your next team meeting to review the latest data and team tools to make sure you're offering up-to-date information about heartworm prevention in your practice.

Step 1: Review the latest information from the 14th Triennial Heartworm Symposium, "Heartworms Today: The Search for Solutions." Watch the videos at dvm360.com/AHSvideos to learn more about heartworm resistance from top parasitology experts and refresh your knowledge about the current canine and feline guidelines from the American Heartworm Society. You can also post your team's questions and comments.

Step 2: Check out the new Heartworm Toolkit at dvm360.com/toolkit for team training, free client handouts, exam room education strategies and more, all designed to make it as easy as possible for veterinarians and their teams to discuss heartworm disease with clients and promote year-round prevention in dogs and cats.

Step 3: Communicate with clients. If you're not using Twitter and Facebook to share your message, make it a New Year's resolution to start now. Get free posts and tweets to start a dialogue with clients at dvm360.com/socialheartworm. Then post the free heartworm poster at dvm360.com/heartwormposter in your practice to keep the message in front of clients.