VetStack AI Scribe Help Center: Your Questions Answered

What the VetStack AI Scribe Actually Does

The VetStack AI Scribe listens during your consultation, captures spoken audio, and converts it into a structured draft SOAP note ready for your review. It works in the room, in real time - not as a tool you feed recordings to after the fact. Background noise, client chatter, and patient sounds are filtered out so the scribe focuses on what you say. Every note still needs your eyes on it before it saves to the record. The scribe drafts; you decide. For a broader explanation of how AI scribes work, see AI Scribes for Vets: How They Work and What They Get Right.

Getting Started: Setup and First Use

Before your first session, confirm that your account has AI Scribe enabled under Settings. Your browser or the VetStack mobile app will prompt you to grant microphone access the first time you open a session. Grant it, then do a short test recording to verify the input is live. If you are using a desktop browser, Chrome and Edge give the most consistent results. Safari on iOS works well for mobile use.

To start a session, open the patient record you are about to see, then tap or click "Start Scribe Session." The scribe links the recording to that patient automatically. If you open a session without linking a patient first, you will be prompted to search and assign one before the note can be saved.

When the consultation ends, tap "Stop and Process." The audio is transcribed and the draft note appears in the record, usually within a minute or two. Once processing is complete, the original audio is deleted from VetStack servers. The structured text note is retained as part of the patient record in line with standard data-handling practices.

Room conditions matter more than most vets expect. A quiet room with the door closed gives noticeably cleaner transcription than a busy open-plan area. Hold your phone or tablet within roughly arm's length while you speak. You do not need to shout or slow down unnaturally, but clipped one-word findings spoken quickly are more likely to be missed than a short, complete phrase.

Dictation Tips That Actually Improve Your Notes

The single habit that improves note quality most is narrating findings as you examine, not summarising them from memory at the end. If you are auscultating a heart murmur, say what you hear while the stethoscope is still on the chest: "Grade three left apical systolic murmur, no radiation detected." That live narration lands in the Objective section cleanly. A vague post-hoc summary like "murmur present" leaves the scribe with nothing to work with and forces you to edit more later.

Consistency within a session helps the scribe recognise your patterns. If you say "BCS" for body condition score in your first patient, keep using "BCS" rather than switching to "body condition" mid-session. The same applies to breed names. For less common breeds, spell them out the first time: "Lagotto Romagnolo, L-A-G-O-T-T-O." Drug names and owner surnames follow the same logic. Spell once, use consistently, and the transcription accuracy improves significantly.

Orthopaedic exams are where dictation discipline pays off most. The scribe cannot infer which limb you are palpating. Say "left stifle, positive cranial drawer, mild effusion" rather than "positive here, some swelling." Each finding needs a location and a character. The Drug Dosage Calculator can help you confirm doses before you dictate them into the plan section.

Before moving from Assessment to Plan, pause and give a one-sentence summary of your assessment. Something like: "Assessment: right forelimb lameness, most consistent with early medial coronary disease." That pause gives the scribe a clear structural signal and results in a cleaner separation between the Assessment and Plan fields in your draft.

Understanding Your Draft SOAP Note

The table below shows what the scribe captures in each SOAP section and where you are most likely to need to fill in gaps before saving.

Section	What the scribe captures	Common gaps to review
Subjective	Owner-reported history, complaint, duration	Vague timeframes, second-hand history
Objective	Exam findings as you narrate them	Findings not spoken aloud during exam
Assessment	Differential diagnoses you name aloud	Ranked differentials, ruled-out conditions
Plan	Treatments, diagnostics, follow-up you state	Doses, recheck intervals, client instructions

Equine notes often require additional fields such as limb and lateral designations that standard canine or feline templates do not include. If your practice sees multiple species, check that the correct species template is selected before you start a session. The scribe will flag any section it could not populate with a bracketed placeholder, for example "[Objective: no findings captured - please review]." These flags appear in amber in the draft editor so they are easy to spot on a quick scan.

To accept the full note, click "Approve and Save." To edit a section, click directly into that field. To reject the entire draft and start fresh, use "Discard Draft" - this does not delete the patient record, only the unsaved note.

Common Issues and How to Fix Them

Problem	Fix
Audio not recording	Check microphone permission in browser or app settings
Key findings missing from note	Narrate findings aloud during the exam, not after
Wrong patient linked to the note	Use "Reassign Patient" before approving the draft
Draft appears blank after processing	Refresh the record; if still blank, contact support
Species or template mismatch	Select correct template from the session setup screen
Poor transcription accuracy	Close the door, move device closer, speak in full phrases

Security, Privacy, and Data Handling

Audio recorded during a session is processed on VetStack's servers and then deleted once the draft note is generated. The resulting text note is stored as part of the patient record and is subject to the same access controls as the rest of your practice management data. Only users with an active account in your practice can view notes generated by the scribe. VetStack staff do not have routine access to individual practice records. In the event of a support request that requires accessing a note, that access is logged and disclosed to the account administrator.

Practices operating under data protection regulations should review their own obligations with respect to storing clinical records electronically. VetStack publishes its current data-handling commitments in the AI Scribe Trust & Security: What Vets Need to Know post, which is updated when policies change.

To request deletion of data associated with a specific record or session, contact the VetStack support team through the in-app help widget or your account dashboard. Requests are handled within the timeframe set out in the current data processing agreement for your account tier.