Veterinary Innovation Podcast

This week, Shawn Wilkie and Dr. Ivan Zak welcome Dr. Lisa Beagan, founder of Your Vet Direction, to discuss how AI-supported triage can bring more structure, consistency, and safety to veterinary intake.
The conversation explores one of the most overlooked risks in practice operations: asking front-desk teams to make triage decisions without the clinical tools or training to do so confidently. Dr. Beagan shares how her platform, Your Vet Direction, helps guide CSRs through the right questions, prioritize urgency, and support better decision-making while keeping humans firmly in the loop.
The episode offers a practical look at how structured AI can reduce variability, improve efficiency, and help veterinary practices modernize one of their most critical workflows.
Learn more about Your Vet Direction.
Dr. Beagan recommends "The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma" by Mustafa Suleyman for its insights on AI guardrails.

International pet travel is one of those topics that sends both pet owners and veterinary teams into a quiet panic. This week, Shawn Wilkie and Dr. Ivan Zak sit down with Marisa Hoskins, the founder of Paws Abroad Inc., to discuss the growing need for better infrastructure around global pet travel. Drawing on her experience moving internationally with her rescue dogs—a journey that also inspired her book The Adventures of Harley and Kalinda: Harley and Kalinda Go to Thailand—Marisa shares how she's turning a frustrating, high-stakes process into a more structured, manageable workflow for both pet owners and veterinary teams.
The conversation explores why international pet travel creates so much administrative strain for clinics, where the biggest compliance breakdowns happen, and how technology can help reduce errors, improve communication, and make travel planning less overwhelming.
If your practice has ever struggled with travel certificates, shifting regulations, or clients who need guidance on moving pets across borders, this episode offers a practical look at a problem many clinics know all too well.
Learn more about Paws Abroad Inc.
Get free early access to the Pawsabroad Vet Portal.
Marisa recommends "The Forever Dog: Surprising New Science to Help Your Canine Companion Live Younger, Healthier, and Longer" by Rodney Habib and Dr. Karen Becker for its insights into proactive pet health and nutrition.

This week, Shawn Wilkie and Dr. Ivan Zak chat with Dr. Ragen T.S. McGowan from Petivity powered by Purina about how the brand's Smart Litter Box Monitor provides a voice for cats. They discuss how AI-powered tracking of weight and elimination patterns can alert owners to changes that might indicate early signs of illness, such as FIC or urinary blockage, before they become clinical emergencies.
Dr. McGowan shares insights into Purina's massive research initiative, involving 300,000 data points to create an objective "window" into feline health. This episode is a must-listen for veterinary professionals looking to bridge the communication gap with cat owners and utilize longitudinal home data to improve clinical outcomes and patient welfare.

Dr. McGowan recommends "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions" by Jaak Panksepp and the TED Talk "Could an Orca Give a Ted Talk?" by Karen Bakker.

This week, Shawn Wilkie and Dr. Ivan Zak welcome Brendan Baker, founder and CEO of PawthosX, to talk about why the next generation of veterinary tech isn't more tools — its orchestration. Brendan shares how PawthosX acts as an AI-native operating system, coordinating over 45 AI agents to handle scribing, SOAP notes, reminders, and reporting, so clinic teams can reduce the heavy cognitive load by automating administrative tasks and coordinating real-time clinical workflows.
By focusing on "calm" and simplicity, Brendan's vision allows veterinarians to move away from fragmented, legacy tech and return their focus to high-quality patient care.
 
Learn more about PawthosX.
Brendan recommends "Greenlights" by Matthew McConaughey for its perspective on reframing problems as signals and moving toward "green lights" in life and business.

Veterinary medicine has long relied on "snapshots" of health taken during clinic visits, but what happens during the months in between? This week, Shawn Wilkie and Dr. Ivan Zak speak with Eric Humbert, Head of Science & AI at Invoxia, about how wearable technology is helping veterinarians monitor pets more continuously and more objectively.
Eric explains how the Biotracker uses advanced signal processing and AI to track heart rate, respiratory rate, activity, and recovery trend outside the clinic — and how the Biotrack veterinary platform gives clinics a dedicated dashboard to monitor all their patients remotely. From earlier detection of chronic disease deterioration to post-op follow-up and treatment monitoring, the episode looks at how remote monitoring could support more proactive care while also opening new opportunities for client engagement and recurring revenue.
The episode offers a practical look at where wearable data may fit into real veterinary workflows, what still needs to be solved, and why continuous monitoring could become an important part of the future of care.
Learn more about Invoxia.
Discover more at Biotrack Invoxia.
Eric recommends "Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age" by Paul Graham for its stimulating ideas on technology, independent thinking, and the power of startups.