New Facility / UNDER THIS ROOF


17


From Good to Great Will a new building help you make the leap? by Jack Sommars


magazine visited with three AAHA Prac- tice of the Year Award winners to learn from their experience.


C


Don’t “have a baby to save the marriage” Upstate Veterinary Specialists of


Greenville, S.C., which won AAHA’s 2011 Practice of the Year Award in the spe- cialty hospital category, shared a facility with an emergency clinic until 2002. The practice’s move to a new facility was ulti- mately driven by the need for more space. “You need square footage for all the


new technology, such as computed tomography scans, linear accelerators, magnetic resonance imaging, minimally invasive surgery and ultrasound rooms,” says Dermot Jevens, DACVS. “We’ve always aspired to be a great


practice, and when you put up a new building, you’re truly throwing down the gauntlet and saying, ‘We’re not just talk- ing the talk, we’re walking the walk.’ The building does a lot to reinforce that.” Jevens and fellow owner Keith Allen,


DACVS, asked their architect to achieve two goals: present a warm, welcoming feeling to clients and have the building reflect the technology that was available to them.


“The building helps set the tone as a


referral practice that you really are the standard of excellence,” says Allen.


Trends magazine, September 2011


“The building helps set the tone as a referral practice that you really are the standard of excellence.” —Keith Allen, DACVS


Both doctors say the new structure is only one part of an ongoing process in their quest to be a great practice. “In the book Good to Great, the author came to the conclusion that the compa- nies that broke out of their shells and did really well didn’t achieve greatness because of a single event,” says Jevens. “It was more of an evolution, like a roll- ing, growing snowball. For us, our snow- ball was already rolling and our building was just another piece of snow—a very dramatic piece of snow—but part of the snowball nonetheless.”


an building a new facility or reno- vating your existing structure be the step that elevates you from a “good” practice to a “great” one? Trends


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