The Veterinary Emergency Critical Care Society defines critical and emergency care as:
- Emergency Care - action taken in response to an emergency. The term implies emergency action directed toward the assessment, treatment, and stabilization of a patient with an urgent medical problem.
- Critical Care - The care taken or required in a response to a crisis. In Medicine, the treatment of a patient with a life-threatening or potentially life-threatening illness or injury whose condition is likely to change on a moment to moment or hour to hour basis. Such patients require intense and often constant monitoring, reassessment, and treatment.
Some conditions that should be considered emergent or critical include:
- Trauma: hit by car, burns, severe wounds, some fractures, blood loss
- Difficulty breathing
- Seizures/coma
- Severe vomiting or diarrhea
- Toxic ingestion
Alpine Animal Hospital has the necessary equipment and facility to stabilize, treat and maintain critical patients. Our staff is trained and experienced in the treatment of a variety of emergency and critical care cases including trauma, acute disease and chronic disease complications. Many of our technicians are also certified by the Red Cross in animal first aid and have experience working in veterinary emergency clinics. We also work closely with the local veterinary emergency clinic (Valley Emergency Pet Care) in treating our critical patients and can transport stable animals that require 24 hour care to their facility for overnight monitoring.
