AI Scribes for ER Vets: Built by an Emergency Veterinarian

The ER Documentation Challenge

Emergency veterinary medicine has a documentation problem that is fundamentally different from general practice. In a scheduled appointment, the veterinarian sees one patient at a time, completes the exam, and has a natural pause to document. In the ER, there is no pause.

An ER veterinarian might be managing a GDV surgery, a toxin ingestion, a hit-by-car trauma, and a diabetic ketoacidosis case simultaneously. Each patient requires detailed documentation: initial triage assessment, stabilization notes, treatment orders, monitoring updates, client communications, and eventually a discharge summary. Multiply that by 15 to 25 cases per shift, and the documentation burden becomes staggering.

The result is predictable. Charts fall behind during the shift. Documentation gets deferred to the end of the night. ER veterinarians routinely finish records at 2 or 3 AM after their shift ends, sometimes spending as much time charting as they spent treating patients. This is not an edge case. It is the standard experience in emergency practice, and it is a leading driver of burnout and attrition in the specialty.

Incomplete documentation also creates downstream problems. When the day team arrives, they inherit patients with thin records. Critical details about overnight treatments, client conversations, and clinical decision-making are lost or buried in fragmented notes. Continuity of care suffers, and the patients pay the price.

Why Generic AI Scribes Fail in the ER

Most AI scribe platforms were designed for scheduled general practice appointments. They assume a predictable workflow: one patient, one exam, one note, move to the next. This model breaks down completely in the ER.

Generic AI scribes often cannot handle the ER workflow for several reasons:

Nonlinear patient encounters: ER cases do not follow a clean Subjective-Objective-Assessment-Plan sequence. The veterinarian might start treatment before completing the exam, receive lab results in the middle of stabilization, and update the plan multiple times as the case evolves.
Multiple concurrent patients: ER vets juggle several patients at once. A scribe tool that assumes one patient at a time creates friction rather than reducing it.
ER-specific terminology: Triage categories, shock indices, CRI calculations, toxicology shorthand, and emergency-specific abbreviations are often misinterpreted by AI tools trained on general practice vocabulary.
Time pressure: In the ER, documentation needs to happen fast or not at all. A tool that requires careful dictation or structured input is unusable when a critical patient is crashing.

Built by an ER Vet: Dr. Christopher Tiller's Story

VetGeni was not created by a software company that decided to enter the veterinary market. It was built by Dr. Christopher Tiller, a practicing emergency veterinarian who experienced the documentation crisis firsthand.

Dr. Tiller knows what it means to finish a 12-hour overnight shift and still have six charts to complete. He knows the feeling of a panicked owner calling at midnight while two other patients need attention. He understands the multi-case juggle, the cognitive load, and the toll that after-hours documentation takes on career sustainability.

That lived experience shaped every design decision in VetGeni. The voice capture is designed for the way ER vets actually talk during a shift, not the way a textbook says they should document. The AI understands emergency terminology, handles complex treatment plans with CRI calculations, and generates documentation that reflects the nonlinear reality of emergency case management.

When an ER vet uses VetGeni, they are using a tool built by someone who has walked the same hallways, treated the same emergencies, and felt the same frustration with documentation burden. That is a fundamentally different product than a generic AI scribe adapted for veterinary use.

How VetGeni Handles ER Workflows

VetGeni was architected for the realities of emergency practice from day one:

Triage-speed voice capture: Speak your findings as fast as you think them. VetGeni handles rapid, unstructured clinical narration and organizes it into proper SOAP sections. You do not need to slow down or dictate in a specific order.
Mobile-friendly: VetGeni works on your phone. At 2 AM in the ICU, you can dictate a quick update without sitting down at a computer.
Pain scoring: VetGeni includes built-in CSU pain scale derivation, automatically scoring pain from 0 to 4 based on your clinical observations. Species-specific scoring ensures accuracy across dogs and cats.
Complex treatment plans: ER cases often involve multiple concurrent medications, CRI dosing, fluid rate calculations, and monitoring parameters. VetGeni structures these into clear, organized treatment plans.
Wiley-licensed references: Every drug dose, differential, and treatment suggestion is backed by published veterinary references from Wiley, not scraped internet content. In the ER, where accuracy is life or death, this matters.

Toxicology in the ER

Toxin ingestions are among the most common emergency presentations, and they require rapid access to accurate information. Which toxins require decontamination? What is the toxic dose for this species at this weight? Is there an antidote, and what is the dosing protocol? How long should monitoring continue?

VetGeni includes built-in toxicology support powered by Wiley-licensed references. This includes toxic dose calculations, decontamination protocols, antidote dosing and administration routes, and expected clinical signs with timelines. When a dog presents at midnight after eating a box of chocolate or a bottle of ibuprofen, the clinician can access the relevant toxicology data immediately and have it documented in the SOAP note as part of the workflow.

For a free preview of this capability, visit the emergency toxicology reference guide.

Documentation Speed: 10 Minutes Saved Per SOAP

ER veterinarians see 15 to 25 cases per shift, depending on the hospital. VetGeni saves approximately 10 minutes per SOAP note and an additional 10 minutes per discharge instruction. That is 20 minutes per patient encounter.

Let us apply those numbers to an average ER shift:

At 15 cases per shift: 15 cases multiplied by 20 minutes equals 5 hours saved per shift.
At 20 cases per shift: 20 cases multiplied by 20 minutes equals nearly 7 hours saved per shift.
At 25 cases per shift: 25 cases multiplied by 20 minutes equals over 8 hours saved per shift.

For an ER vet working a 12-hour overnight shift, the difference between going home at 7 AM and going home at midnight is the difference between a sustainable career and burnout. VetGeni makes it possible to leave on time with complete charts because the documentation happens during the shift, not after it.

Review the full time savings data on our time savings page.

Wiley References in Emergency Medicine

Emergency medicine demands the highest level of accuracy. Drug doses in critical patients have narrow therapeutic windows. Toxicology protocols change based on the substance, species, and time since exposure. Fluid rates and electrolyte corrections must be calculated precisely.

VetGeni is the only veterinary AI scribe powered by Wiley-licensed references. This means that every drug dose, toxicology protocol, and treatment recommendation generated by VetGeni is grounded in the same peer-reviewed, editorially curated content used in veterinary schools and specialist training programs.

No competitor has this. Other AI scribes rely on general-purpose language models trained on scraped internet content. In general practice, this may be acceptable for routine cases. In the ER, where a wrong drug dose can kill a patient, the reference quality behind the AI output is not optional. It is essential.

The medicolegal protection is equally important. ER cases are disproportionately likely to be reviewed by licensing boards, insurance companies, or in malpractice proceedings. Documentation generated with Wiley-backed AI demonstrates an evidence-based approach that aligns with the standard of care.

Discharge Instructions for ER Clients

ER discharge instructions are uniquely challenging. Clients are often emotional, exhausted, and overwhelmed. They may have arrived in a panic at midnight and are being discharged at 6 AM after minimal sleep. The discharge instructions need to be exceptionally clear because the client's ability to process complex information is diminished.

VetGeni generates client-ready discharge instructions from the SOAP note in plain language. Medications include clear dosing schedules. Warning signs are spelled out explicitly. Follow-up instructions specify what to do, when to do it, and when to return to the ER. The output is designed for a stressed, tired client who needs to understand the care plan without medical training.

VetGeni also supports multi-language translation for discharge instructions, ensuring that non-English-speaking clients receive clear guidance in their preferred language.

Getting Started for ER Teams

VetGeni offers a 14-day free trial with full access to every feature, including the AI scribe, SOAP note generation, discharge instructions, toxicology support, and the Wiley-backed drug database. After the trial, the professional plan is $50 per month per clinician.

For ER teams evaluating the platform, we recommend starting with a single clinician on a few shifts to measure the impact. Track documentation completion time, after-shift charting hours, and chart quality. Most ER vets see the difference within the first shift.

To explore VetGeni's emergency-specific features, visit the ER specialty page. To try the AI scribe with your own clinical narration, start with the AI scribe overview or jump straight to the free demos.

VetGeni was built by an ER vet, for ER vets. The documentation crisis in emergency practice is real, and the solution is here.