I am the veterinarian for the One Health Clinic in Seattle, Washington, which the VIN News Service covered last year ("Seattle clinic treats people and pets together," Jan. 30, 2020). The clinic brings together a veterinarian and veterinary students, a nurse practitioner and students in health sciences (including medical, nursing, social work and nutrition) to treat young adults who are experiencing homelessness and their pets together.
Using what we have learned since the inception of the clinic in October 2018, we have created a One Health Clinic Toolkit. The goal of this toolkit is to support organizations that want to replicate our innovative integrated-care model in their own community and with their own target population.
The toolkit covers information on networking, how to create and run different types of clinics and how to effectively communicate interprofessionally between human and veterinary health-care providers as well as best-practices communicating with the client-animal unit.
The toolkit also provides checklists, templates and forms to use in future One Health Clinics. We are currently looking for three to four pilot sites interested in starting a One Health Clinic in their own communities under our mentorship. Pilot organizations must be willing to provide feedback on utilization so we can continue to make improvements prior to widespread distribution. Anyone interested in piloting this program, please contact onehealthclinicseattle@gmail.com.
Thank you for your consideration and feel free to reach out to the email above with any additional questions or to become involved as a One Health Clinic pilot site.
Dr. Katie Kuehl is a clinical assistant professor in shelter medicine at Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine.