Amber Miller, hospital manager of The Veterinary Center at Fishhawk in Lithia, Florida, faced an unexpected staffing crisis when her Chief of Staff had an unexpected medical emergency. With a growing practice and last-minute schedule gaps, Amber turned to Roo for dependable relief coverage on short notice.
Amber's hospital, The Veterinary Center at Fishhawk, is part of a network that provides complex surgical procedures as well as general practice near Tampa, Florida, and they rely heavily on their core team of veterinarians (don’t we all?). When her lead veterinarian had to leave unexpectedly, Amber struggled to find coverage.
"Finding coverage and finding doctors at the last minute or abrupt changes, it was really difficult."
They had previously used another relief service, but it did not always provide the necessary support. “We were not always getting hits,” she noted. The clinic needed a way to fill shifts — fast, often on very short notice, with skilled veterinarians who could seamlessly integrate into her team.
After hearing about Roo from another hospital in her network, Amber decided to give it a try. The results were immediate.
“The very first time I ever used you guys, it was instant. I was just getting hit with doctors accepting [shifts], and I was just blown away at the number of people who were willing to come in and help out."
Using Roo, Amber was able to quickly and easily get relief coverage for her shifts, sometimes with less than a day’s notice!
“There were times where the night before I'm getting told my doctor's calling out sick and I'm like, ‘Cool, I'm going to get on Roo real quick,’ and somebody was already saying yes. This is amazing.”
With Roo’s support, Amber was able to maintain continuous operations at her hospital, even in the face of other sudden or unexpected absences. The Roo Relief Veterinarians who supported her hospital were not only skilled but also integrated well with her existing team.
"I've never met a doctor [from Roo] that was unhappy or wasn't always smiling or willing to just chat with the team," she said.
The benefits extended beyond simply filling shifts. Many Relief Vets actively contributed to the hospital’s success.
“It was great because I would get feedback from the team and the doctor saying, ‘They're great. They're pushing ultrasounds and surgeries,’ and that's not just getting them in and getting them out. They were actually trying to push more business our way too.’”
Amber described the experience as transformational for the hospital. “By the end of the first week, I was like, ‘Okay, this is going great.’ Every single one of them was cheerful, and I basically said I'm going to use Roo from here on out.”
For Amber, Roo became an essential tool for managing her hospital’s staffing needs.
"I don't know when [my chief of staff] might not be able to come in. I know that I'm not as worried or stressed out anymore because I know if she calls me the night before, I can easily just open my laptop, go in, and put in a request for a shift the next day, and I'm more than 99.9% sure that somebody's going to fill that shift."
When asked to sum up her experience with Roo, Amber said, “Knowing that we can get those shifts filled and knowing that we have a great team that can help us find doctors or technicians, it gives us managers that have to provide all these schedules a sense of relief.”
Roo provided a dependable, efficient, and high-quality relief staffing solution for Amber’s veterinary hospital during a critical time. With quick response times, highly-skilled professionals, and a user-friendly platform, Roo enabled her clinic to continue providing exceptional care without the stress of last-minute scheduling challenges.
