There’s no doubt that AI scribes have lightened the documentation load on veterinary teams dealing with packed schedules, complex cases, and detailed medical records.
But choosing the right scribe for your practice isn’t always simple, and it’s easy to get a false sense of confidence from a few smooth cases. Straightforward appointments won’t always show you how a scribe handles overlapping conversations, complex veterinary terminology, multi-pet visits, or frequent medication changes. A trial gives you the chance to test the scribe on the kinds of days and cases that usually make documentation harder. The key is knowing what to look for while you’re testing it.
What Should You Evaluate During an AI Scribe Trial?
Of course, you want the scribe to save your team time, but that’s only part of the picture. You also need to know whether the scribe captures clinical details accurately, protects client and patient data, works with the way your team documents care, and actually reduces work instead of creating more of it. It can be a lot to keep track of across a trial, especially when several people are testing the tool in different types of appointments.
That’s why we created the Veterinary AI Scribe Evaluation Checklist. It organizes the key questions into 7 sections your team can work through as you go:
- Veterinary relevance: whether the tool was designed, tested, and evaluated for veterinary use
- Accuracy and review: how well it captures clinical details and how easy notes are to check and edit
- Data privacy and security: where your data goes, who can access it, and how it’s protected
- Workflow fit: how well the tool works with your existing systems and documentation process
- Ease of adoption: how easy it is for your team to learn, use, and get help when they need it
- Client communication and consent: how recording and consent are handled
- Trial results: whether the tool actually saves time, cuts down on duplicate work, and helps get records finished sooner
Put It to the Test
Once the trial starts, pay attention to where the AI scribe saves time and where it creates extra work. Run it through the situations that actually test a scribe: back-to-back appointments, complex cases, interruptions, and medication changes mid-appointment. Pay particular attention to the cases that usually leave the most documentation behind at the end of the day. Then look honestly at what changed. Did notes need less work? Did the tool save time across the whole team, or did it just move the work somewhere else?
Compare the trial with your current process, too. A faster first draft only helps if there’s less left to review, edit, transfer, and finalize.
Keep the checklist nearby as you go so you can capture what you’re seeing while it’s still fresh, instead of trying to remember everything once the trial is over.
Download the Free Veterinary AI Scribe Evaluation Checklist
Use the Veterinary AI Scribe Evaluation Checklist during your next trial to keep the key questions in front of your team and see how the scribe performs in your practice.
