The 30 Seconds Before the Consult: What a Vet Needs to Know, and How Koko AI Sums It Up

Bruno, a six-year-old Labrador, is back after six months. You have about 30 seconds between the last patient and this one. His last visit is in the register, his CBC came as a PDF in a WhatsApp chat, and nobody has written down his weight since March. What do you need to know before you say hello?

This post covers what a vet needs in those 30 seconds, why it's hard to get there, and how Koko AI puts it together on the treatment screen. The checklist works with or without software.

What a vet needs to know before the consult

A good pre-consult read answers seven questions:

• Why is the pet here today? A booked follow-up, a vaccine, or something new.
• What's still open from last time? The ear that was meant to be rechecked, the stool sample that never came back.
• Chronic or ongoing conditions. Skin allergy, arthritis, a heart murmur.
• Current medicines. What the pet is on now, so a new prescription doesn't clash with it or double it.
• The weight and vitals trend. A dog that has lost two kilos since spring needs a different conversation.
• Lab findings worth carrying forward. The slightly raised liver enzyme that should be rechecked in three months.
• Vaccinations due or overdue. A visit for an ear is a chance to give the booster.

Each answer fits on a line. Finding them is the slow part.

Why 30 seconds usually isn't enough

The information exists, but it's spread out. Visit notes sit in a register or in the clinic's previous software. Lab reports arrive as PDFs on WhatsApp and stay there. Weight is written on the visit sheet and never charted. Vaccination dates live on a card the pet parent forgets to bring.

Putting it together means flipping pages, scrolling chats and asking the pet parent when the last deworming was. On a busy evening that step gets skipped, and the consult starts from whatever the vet remembers.

How Koko AI builds the snapshot

On Koko, a pet's visits, prescriptions, vitals, lab reports and vaccinations are already on one medical history. When the vet opens the treatment screen, a snapshot card sits at the top. One tap on Generate snapshot, and Koko AI reads:

• the pet's profile and weight history
• summaries of past visits
• lab reports from the last six months
• vaccinations and their due dates

It returns a short Today's quick-read, followed by sections the vet can scan in order: Snapshot, Open clinical threads, Chronic and ongoing conditions, Current medications, Recent vitals trend, Lab findings worth carrying forward, and Vaccination status.

For Bruno, it might read like this:

• Today's quick-read: Recheck for a left ear infection, day 4 of 7 on Otomax drops. Anti-rabies due 6 November.
• Open clinical threads: Ear recheck at the end of the course.
• Current medications: Otomax ear drops, twice daily.
• Recent vitals trend: Weight steady at 28 kg; 38.9 °C at the last visit.
• Lab findings worth carrying forward: Mild eosinophilia on the October CBC.
• Vaccination status: DHPPi up to date; anti-rabies due 6 November.

That's an illustrative example; a real snapshot is written from the pet's own records. Each snapshot lists the records it was built from, and a link opens the full medical history timeline when the vet wants the detail. If new records come in after it was generated, the vet can refresh it.

Lab reports and past visits get summaries too

The snapshot isn't the only summary in the pet's medical history:

• Lab reports get a Koko AI summary in three parts: abnormal findings, flags for the vet to review, and reassuring findings. A long panel becomes the three lines a vet reads first.
• Past visits get a summary of the vitals, notes and medicines, so looking back a year doesn't mean reading every note in full.
• Outside reports, like an X-ray or a referral letter from another clinic, can be uploaded to the pet's record. Koko AI gives each one a title and a short summary.

What Koko AI doesn't do

Koko AI doesn't diagnose, prescribe or decide anything. It reads the record and summarises it. The vet examines the pet and makes every clinical call, and the snapshot card says so in plain words: "Koko AI can make mistakes. Check important info."

Vets can mark each summary as helpful or not with a thumbs up or down, which tells us where it needs to improve.

On data: Koko AI sends only the records a summary needs to our AI providers through their business APIs, and under their business terms that data isn't used to train their models. Our privacy policy sets this out in full.

A summary is only as good as the record

Koko AI can only summarise what has been recorded. Three habits make the snapshot useful from the first week:

• Record every visit in Koko, including quick rechecks. A visit that only lives in the register won't reach the snapshot.
• Bill vaccines through Koko. A vaccine billed at checkout goes on the pet's chart with the next due date, so the vaccination status stays right.
• Upload outside reports to the pet's record instead of leaving them in a WhatsApp chat.

A new pet with no history gets a short snapshot. It fills in with each visit, lab report and vaccine.

See it in 75 seconds

Our short video walks through a pet's medical history on Koko, from the timeline to the Koko AI summaries: Medical records that follow the pet.

Want to see the snapshot live? Book a free demo and we'll walk you through it.

Frequently asked questions

Does Koko AI diagnose the pet?

No. It summarises the records already in Koko. Diagnosis and treatment stay with the vet.

Which records does the snapshot read?

The pet's profile and weight history, summaries of past visits, lab reports from the last six months, and vaccinations with their due dates.

What if the pet has no history in Koko yet?

The snapshot works from whatever has been recorded, so a new pet's snapshot is short. It grows with each visit, lab report and vaccine.

Is my clinic's data used to train AI models?

No. Records go to our AI providers through their business APIs only to produce the summary, and under their business terms that data isn't used for training. See our privacy policy.