When you step into the veterinary clinic, chances are the first person you see is not the vet. Client Service Representatives (CSRs), Registered Veterinary Technicians (RVTs) also called Vet Nurses, Techs, Vet Assistants or Animal Care Assistants (ACAs) all work as “support staff”. No matter what you call them; the support staff are doing it all. 

But the way we see it, the team that runs the show, and allows doctors to focus on medicine are not given nearly enough credit.

From booking appointments, to tackling spicy pets for blood draws or nail trims; support staff are often pulled in multiple directions and expected to do it all, with a smile on their face. So why then, do we see such a dramatic respect difference from clients when it comes to dealing with support staff?

The support staff are often just as involved in the triaging and care, just as emotionally invested, and equally as knowledgeable. Without them, the veterinary hospital would cease to run.

So what can we do about it?​

The first step in change is recognizing the need for it. Within the hospital, team members should continue to treat their staff with the respect and value they treat doctors with. Try using “Power Thank-You’s”, which elaborate on the merit of the words.

An example being: “Thank you for doing that cytology so quickly, it allows the appointment to run much smoother for me!”

Have a monthly book club to bring everyone closer, organize a restaurant night or write randomized “warm and fuzzy” statements calling out excellent work from team members.  

Changes to how we interact with our own team members, can dramatically make a difference in the work environment and show them just how valued they are.

Now when it comes to the client facing side, we can encourage more respect for our support staff by singing the praises of the unsung heroes to the clients. Ensuring the clients see how much we value our team members work behind the scenes and verbalising how appreciative we are for their roles.  

The reality is - vet hospitals are not a one person show. Medicine takes a whole health care team. Without the incredibly skilled support staff, veterinarians would not be able to do what they do.

As such, hospitals - as well as the industry as a whole - needs to not only actively build up support staff but also go above and beyond to ensure that clients are respecting and valuing the work they put in everyday.  

We at Scribenote would like to shout out, and thank all of the incredible and dedicated technicians, client service representatives and assistants that tackle the many roles and responsibilities their jobs throw at them.

We see you, we respect you and we deeply appreciate you.

Having been involved in some form of veterinary medicine for over a decade now, I have seen things shift, change and grow. The move from paper records to on computers, x-ray film to digital and even the removal or reduction of on-call, after hours.

As the industry grows and betters itself, I think the way veterinarians complete their medical records needs to improve too.

Let's do the math​

The typical general practice veterinarian works 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. A VIN survey completed in 2011 reported that the majority of vets are booked for 30 minute appointments, with some practices seeing patients as often as every 20 or even 15 minutes. This means that the average veterinarian is seeing anywhere from 14 to 30 appointments in a day.  Now if we assume that each appointment requires a typed medical record that takes 5 to 7 minutes to produce (if you're efficient!), that's about 20 records a day times 6 minutes... 120 minutes. 

That means doctors are spending around 2 hours per day just on their notes! That’s 2 hours per day of typing, 2 hours per day sitting in front of a screen—with sore necks, sore eyes, and tired of the tedious task of typing. 

The impact​

Often due to overscheduling and under-staffing, veterinary professionals are left very little extra room in their busy schedules. I’ve seen colleagues resorting to using lunch breaks to catch up on typing notes or staying past closing time. I’ve even met some peers who reserve big chunks of their weekend for medical record catch-up!

This is not sustainable.

This does not create a healthy work-life balance, nor does it foster a culture of mental health and wellness. I believe this should not be the norm. We should be creating a healthy and sustainable workplace, where all members of the team have their time respected.

An extra two hours per day ​

Imagine a world where every veterinarian had their notes done for them, automatically. Where setting aside time to type or even dictate was a thing of the past. The average veterinarian would gain back 2 hours of their work day. 

This time could be used for continuing education, personal development, a much needed break or time to reconnect with clients, patients or staff members. This means vets could spend their lunch periods actually eating their lunch instead of trying to catch up. This means vets could have the opportunity to leave work when their shift is finished.

We have to remember that the veterinary industry is full of individuals who are chronically overworked and experiencing various levels of burnout, compassion fatigue, and emotional trauma. A recent study published in 2021 says 31% of U.S. veterinarians reported experiencing depressive episodes and 17% of U.S. vets have had suicidal ideation. These statistics are incredibly heartbreaking and in desperate need of our focus. Anything that can give veterinarians a much needed break, or some time back in their day, is well earned and worth exploring. 

Obviously, documentation is not the only burden plaguing veterinarians. But it certainly isn’t helping them either, and in a world where cars can basically drive themselves, why are veterinarians still expected to be stuck writing notes for hours a day?

These statistics are one of the reasons Scribenote exists.

Scribenote was created by a veterinarian, a vet student and their closest friends and family. With direct insight into the effects that burnout has on the individual and the industry as a whole. We saw the impact that these burdensome hours of documentation had on our peers and even our very own family. Our mission is to give vets their time back and make veterinary medicine sustainable again.

Join the Scribenote movement now—and see the difference automated documentation can make!

There are many tips and tricks we could show you to help you write your SOAP notes quicker than ever - you could use a template, or even dictate into SOAP fields instead of typing. These are great options to reduce the time you spend writing SOAP notes.

But what if you didn't have to write them at all? What if you could just press a button and have your SOAP note done without you even having to think about it, like magic?

Scribenote's Appointments feature is just that - all you have to do is record your full appointment, and you'll get a SOAP note back ASAP, with no need to type!

Let's see how it works, shall we?

No more struggling to remember what you said during the appointment, or what the pet parent said they were feeding ol' Scrappy... potato peels? No, that can't be it... 🤨

No more staying late at the clinic clicking around a clunky interface. No more jotting down quick notes and measurements on a pad of paper and not being able to actually read them when it comes time to write your SOAP notes... does that say 30 mg or 50 mg? 🤔

Imagine having your SOAP notes done for you right as you leave your appointment exam room, and not needing to spend an hour or two at the end of the day typing and typing and typing.

Folks who have tried Appointments say things like:

• "They actually blow my mind at how good they are - they are better than I would write myself!"
• "FYI the first appt of my day was a screaming 4 year old child, his mom and the cat. The SOAP is perfect."
• "This new upgrade is sweet! Overall great impression from it today."
• "It's so wonderful!!"
• "It worked flawlessly and it was amazing!!"
• "So far very accurate, gets spelling names wrong (expected) but so far very impressive."
• "So super cool!  Had almost everything right."
• "Many of the ones I did today had everything lined out with maybe a minor correction."

TL;DR - How to save time on your SOAP notes? Don't write them, use Scribenote Appointments.

Scribenote Appointments will be available soon. Stay tuned!

We just wanted to quickly announce a neat little feature that'll shave a couple more seconds off your documentation time, and help you keep track of the many appointment notes you make throughout the day!

Any Auto-SOAPs you make will now get an automatically-generated title based on the context of the appointment. That'll save you the extra step of having to come up with a name like "Fluffy's nail trim".

Have your own system for naming your notes? No worries, just replace the auto-generated title with whatever you wish.

We hope you love it! Happy Auto-SOAPing! 🧼

We hope you've been enjoying the new time-saving Auto-SOAP feature we recently released! If you haven't tried them yet, we highly suggest you try them out while they're still free to use unlimited-ly (is that a word?) until Jan 01, 2023. After then, we'll be introducing the 1-per-day Auto-SOAP cap for all Free and Basic plan users.

How will this work? If you have the Auto-SOAP setting enabled, your first recording for that day will be an Auto-SOAP. All subsequent recordings for that day will be regular audio recordings that will not be automatically turned into a SOAP note. The 1 free daily Auto-SOAP will refresh 24 hours after the last one you make.

Your limit will show in the upper right corner of your screen:

If you'd like to keep using Auto-SOAPs in an unlimited capacity, you can upgrade to our new Pro plan. If you are already on a yearly plan, don't forget to reach out to our support team before you do so we can give you a pro-rated upgrade price.

If you're on a Scribenote Auto plan, you won't need to make any changes. You'll be able to use unlimited Auto-SOAPs free of charge.

We want to thank everyone that tried out Auto-SOAPs! We wish we could keep unlimited Auto-SOAPs included in our lower tiered plans, but unfortunately, it would be unsustainable for our small company. They require expensive computers to enable the cutting-edge AI technology that takes an ordinary recording and turns it into a complete SOAP note in less than 3 minutes.

New: Minor SOAP note layout changes

Just a heads up, we've changed the layout at the top of the SOAP note form on the web application to make it a bit neater.

Old layout (above) and new layout (below):

We also made it easier to edit the date/time a note was created, and renamed the "autocomplete" feature to "autosuggest" as we received some feedback that it was a bit confusing.

As always, thank you for using Scribenote and have a wonderful holiday season! Please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions, we'll be happy to help out!

Many thanks for your support, The Scribenote Team

We've got one exciting feature coming soon to Scribenote that we think is a game-changer in the world of veterinary documentation - here's a sneak peek of how it works:

1. You record a quick appointment summary.
2. Scribenote automatically transcribes the audio.
3. Scribenote automatically sorts each sentence into a SOAP category.
4. You get back a complete SOAP note.

Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy! This all happens in the span of a few minutes, and the SOAP note is processed with no human in the loop.

We'll be rolling this out as a FREE Beta feature this week, and we're so excited for you to try it!

Hey everyone!

This is the first installment in a series of posts where we'll announce new Scribenote features each month. As a new startup, we’re always hard at work making Scribenote better. Many of the changes below are the direct result of conversations we’ve had with our customers.

Without further ado, here's the list for September 2022!

Website and app:​

• New feature - 📝 Note titles (previously note-to-self): We’ve expanded the “note-to-self” field previously used for quicknotes and turned it into the more general “Note title”, which is now available on all types of Scribenote SOAP notes. Note titles make it easy to identify which note corresponds to an appointment. For example, you could quickly glance through patient notes and get more context on that patient from titles like "Checkup", "Vaccines", and "Dermatitis". Note titles are an optional field in SOAP forms, but can be added to new and previously saved notes. They can be as short and sweet or long and descriptive as you wish! By the way, note titles are not shared with recipients of export emails.
• Improvement - 🏷 Note labels: You can now see the status of a particular note at-a-glance to see if it’s a new recording, draft, completed note, etc. These labels show in the inbox, during note edits, and in patient notebooks or the quicknotes page. They are not shared with recipients of export emails.
• Improvement - 💾 Drafts: Drafts and new recordings now also show in patient notebooks and on the quicknotes page. No more looking for lost drafts in your inbox (they'll still be there though)!

Website only:​

• New feature - 📥 Basic inbox: This is a new page where you can quickly see and manage your drafts and newly completed notes ready for export.
• New feature - 📧 Embedded Auto export emails: Before, automatically exported emails set up through Scribenote could only receive an access link. Now, you can choose to embed the contents of a finished SOAP into an email that automatically sends when you complete a note.
• New feature - 📔 Export a patient notebook to one PDF: Previously, a patient notebook could be exported into a ZIP collection of all the records for a particular patient. Now, you can export an entire patient notebook by clicking the "Export Notebook" button at the top right corner of the patient's notebook. This rolls up all completed SOAPs for a patient into a single PDF. This PDF can optionally include key patient information if you choose - just check your account settings.
• New feature - 💾 Autosaving: This has been highly requested, and we're just sorry we couldn't get to it sooner! But alas, autosaving for SOAP notes is finally here! It works much like you'd expect, similar to other apps like Google Docs. All you need to do is type your note as usual. Your note will autosave as a draft quietly in the background. No matter what - bad internet, a computer crash, alien invasion, etc - you won't ever have to worry about losing your work while writing a draft.

• New feature - 🚚 Move and Copy Notes: This feature will surely make your note management a breeze! Now, you can simply multi-select quicknotes or patient notes using the ⚡️Quick Actions selectors to move or copy them to another patient! Super handy for repeat or multi-patient appointments!

App only:​

• Improvement - 🔄 Audio synchronization workflow: Audio recordings that don't save due to network connectivity issues are now easier to keep track of and sync.
• New feature - ✍️ Edit completed notes: Previously, only new notes and drafts could be edited on the Scribenote mobile app. Patient notebooks and quicknotes now have a link to edit previously completed notes.

These updates are now available on our web and mobile apps (v1.0.9 available in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store). In addition to all of this, we’ve made many bug fixes, and improvements over the past few weeks. We’re always working to improve, so if you see more opportunities for us to grow, please feel free to share.

Are you a veterinary specialist practicing in Ophthalmology, Dentistry or another domain? See how you can tailor Scribenote's SOAP notes to fit your documentation needs.

Scribenote Basic​

Writing your notes away from the clinic?​

Recording your appointments?​

Design for work-life balance ⚖️​

We have heard the troubling stats. Some of our team members have felt it themselves as practicing veterinarians. Vets are some of the most overworked professionals out there. We don't like this, and we want to help you with just a small part of that load. The boring part. The part you hate spending time on. The part that keeps you at work late or rushing to your next appointment. The clinical documentation. Our only goal is to take as much of that work off your plate as we can. We do this to make your work a little easier, and hopefully your life a little bit better.

Minutes matter ⏳​

Every minute we shave off your clinical documentation is a step in the right direction. We'll spend dozens of hours of engineering effort just to save you a minute.

Let doctors doctor 🩺​

You are a doctor of veterinary medicine. A healer of the sick. A protector of the healthy. A voice for the voiceless. A diagnostic super sleuth. A dentist. A surgeon. That's all pretty cool. 😎

You shouldn't have to be a data entry clerk on top of all that. We know you didn't work this hard to become a doctor with dreams of spending hours every day clicking buttons on a computer and drowning in paperwork.

‍Scribenote exists to help doctors spend more time doctoring.

Obsessed with the boring stuff 🤓​

Clinical documentation is one of the most boring aspects of practicing veterinary medicine. Scribenote has built its business on making the boring, less boring.

We can't make the act of typing notes any more fun, but we can certainly make it easier. We can even make it go away completely.

The boring stuff is our bread and butter, and by chipping away at it for you, we make your job slightly cooler than it already is. 😎

Jack of all trades = master of none 🔨​

Scribenote aims to keep our products as simple as possible. Right now, our focus is building tools to help vets make SOAP notes. We know this isn't the complete spectrum of computer tasks a clinic has to manage, but it's an important one.

By focusing intensely on SOAP notes, we can create smooth documentation workflows that a lot of EMRs out there couldn't dream of.