Humane Access & Integrated Screening (HAIS)

Our History

HAIS-Vet grew out of one owner's difficult experience with a pet's veterinary care including triage delays, sedation withheld over cost, and a diagnosis that was missed for longer than it should have been. That experience, examined through the founder's professional background in quality improvement and health systems research, became the basis for HAIS-Vet's Toolkit, Quick Guide, and owner survey. These experiences are described in general terms; HAIS-Vet does not name or investigate specific clinics or veterinarians. HAIS-Vet is the first program under the HAIS umbrella.

Why HAIS-Vet exists

Veterinary regulation in Canada is set province by province. Provincial colleges such as the College of Veterinarians of Ontario do set standards for after-hours access, client communication, and the veterinarian-client-patient relationship. But there is no single, mandated, standardized protocol most owners can point to for:

In-clinic emergency triage prioritization
Sedation and pain-management transparency at the point of care
Consistent warm hand-off practices between clinics
Plain-language owner-rights communication
Integrated screening for systemic disease patterns (e.g., the dental–GI link)
Clinic-level quality-improvement tracking and public reporting

This gap can lead to inconsistent experiences, sometimes even at the same clinic, visit to visit and in some cases, to preventable suffering for pets and distress for owners. HAIS-Vet exists to help close that gap with plain-language, owner-centered tools without replacing your veterinarian, your provincial regulatory college, or professional clinical judgment.

For veterinary professionals

HAIS-Vet is built with respect for the pressures clinics operate under — staffing, cost, and time. We are developing a Phase 2 program offering clinics resources on owner communication, triage transparency, and pain management documentation. If you are a veterinary professional interested in shaping or piloting this, we would like to hear from you. [Contact us]

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