There are 94 core competencies that define what a credentialed veterinary technician (CrVT) is prepared to do. Most practices leverage a fraction of them.
A new workforce-informed framework addresses that gap directly. Published in the January issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) and developed by Dr. Julie Noyes and colleagues at Ethos Veterinary Health, the ASCEND framework (Advancing Skills, Competencies, and Education in Veterinary Nursing Development) is designed to establish a shared, profession-wide reference for what CrVTs are actually qualified to do. According to AVMA News, the framework emerged because that reference didn't previously exist.
The Real Problem Is Role Clarity
The ASCEND team built the framework in three phases, including a national survey of 302 practitioners. What they found wasn't a skills gap. It was a conceptual one: most respondents conflated competencies with tasks.
It's a distinction with real consequences for how CrVTs get deployed. "Performs dental radiographs" is a task specific to one clinical context. "Performs imaging diagnostics" is a competency that transfers across settings. When practices think in tasks, they hire and deploy CrVTs for specific procedures. When they think in competencies, they unlock the full scope of what those team members are prepared to contribute.
The ASCEND framework spans both technical and professional domains. On the technical side, CrVT competencies include executing safe anesthesia induction protocols, triaging patients, conducting point-of-care diagnostics, and monitoring sedation for nonsurgical procedures. On the professional side, they include adapting care plans, facilitating euthanasia discussions, identifying emergent situations, advising clients on husbandry, and supervising veterinary assistants.
Read that list and it describes a clinical partner, not a supporting role.
What Underutilization Actually Costs
The underutilization of credentialed vet techs is a documented, persistent problem. Organizations from the AVMA to AAHA have released utilization guidelines in recent years, all making the same basic argument: practices that don't deploy CrVTs at the top of their scope are leaving efficiency, patient care quality, and staff satisfaction on the table.
The retention angle is especially direct. A prior study in JAVMA found a link between underutilization and CrVT attrition. When skilled professionals spend their days on tasks below their training, they leave, a pattern explored further in our piece on why vet techs are leaving and how ASCEND could fix it. Right now, vet med can't afford to keep losing the technicians it already has.
Tami Lind, a veterinary technician specialist in emergency and critical care and a member of the AVMA Committee on Advancing Veterinary Technicians and Technologists, put it plainly:
How the ASCEND Framework Changes Hiring and Development
The ASCEND framework gives practices a concrete starting point that didn't exist before: a documented, research-based map of what a CrVT should be able to do across practice settings.
The practical applications are immediate. Auditing how CrVTs are currently deployed against the ASCEND competency domains reveals where capacity is going unrealized. Rewriting job descriptions and onboarding expectations around competencies rather than tasks attracts candidates who understand their own scope and creates clarity for existing team members. Using the framework in performance and development conversations gives CrVTs a defined growth path tied to their clinical scope, which directly affects whether they stay and invest in the practice. And addressing role ambiguity head-on, the survey found consistent confusion about what technicians are expected to do, is a leadership function, not an HR formality.
The full competency list and AVMA resources on CrVT engagement and career development are available through AVMA's practice management resources.
The Floor Is Higher Than Most Practices Treat It
The profession has spent years arguing for better vet tech utilization. The ASCEND framework is the most rigorous articulation yet of what that actually looks like, and it gives practices something they didn't have before: a concrete reference point for how to hire, deploy, and develop credentialed technicians against their real scope.