Photograph the bloodwork. The abnormal values go into the record.

How lab capture works

Photograph the analyzer printout or the lab panel with your phone. Vetinuity reads it and puts the abnormal values straight into the record of the patient you are working on. There is no retyping a chemistry panel line by line, and no transposed digit from a tired hand late in a shift.

Capture happens wherever the lab work happens: beside the analyzer, in treatment, or in the exam room with the owner still waiting for an answer. The phone you already carry is the scanner, and it works with the printouts and panels you already have.

Once the values are in the record, they are part of the case, not a separate attachment. That is what lets the rest of Vetinuity respond to them.

Example

Example: a preanesthetic panel on a senior dog

An 11-year-old miniature schnauzer is booked for a dental cleaning with possible extractions, and the preanesthetic panel runs that morning. The chemistry shows ALT and ALP above the reference range and a mildly elevated BUN.

You photograph the printout. Those values land in the record, and the suggestions for the case update:

• Differentials for the liver enzyme elevation, such as primary hyperlipidemia, hyperadrenocorticism and gallbladder mucocele, each with its citation.
• A recommended urinalysis with urine specific gravity before anesthesia, to interpret the BUN.
• Considerations for the anesthetic and analgesic plan given the results, each with its citation.

Whether the dental goes ahead today, waits for more workup, or proceeds with a modified protocol is your call, made with the numbers and the evidence in front of you. If you postpone, the values are already in the record for the next visit.

Lab values on your rounds board

For hospitalized patients a lab photo does more than fill in one record. Rounds you record at the start of a shift build your board, and lab photos taken on a hospitalized case update that patient on it.

Repeat electrolytes, a recheck PCV, the morning chemistry: photograph them and your board stays current without copying numbers from paper to screen. The board is yours, built from your rounds and your exam rooms. On a busy shift that is the difference between a board that reflects this morning and one that reflects the last time someone had a free minute to update it.

From printout to plan

In many clinics a lab result travels a long way before it changes anything. The analyzer prints, someone carries the paper to the doctor, the doctor reads it between appointments, and the values get typed into the record later, often by someone else. Each handoff adds delay and another chance for a number to be misread.

A photo collapses that chain. The person at the analyzer, or the veterinarian holding the printout, takes one picture, and the case updates where the veterinarian is already working. The record, the suggestions and, for hospitalized patients, the rounds board all reflect the new values.

It also leaves a cleaner chart. The values in the record are the values on the printout, captured once, rather than a transcription someone has to double-check.

Other paperwork the camera reads

Lab panels are not the only paper in a clinic. Photograph a patient label and Vetinuity adds the patient. Photograph records from another clinic and they come back as a summary in the chart, which is a faster way into a transfer or a second-opinion case than reading a stack of faxed pages.

The common thread is that information arriving on paper should not need a person to type it in again.

For a transfer patient arriving late in the day, that means you can photograph the referral paperwork and the outside bloodwork together, read a summary of the history, see the abnormal values in the chart, and walk into the exam room already knowing the case instead of learning it from the owner in the hallway.

None of this asks you to change analyzers, labs or forms. The paper that already moves through your clinic becomes data the moment someone points a phone at it.

Why the photo matters to the conversation

Owners usually hear about bloodwork in the gap between the draw and the decision, the stretch where they are anxious and you are busy. When the abnormal values are already in the record and the suggestions have already updated, that gap gets shorter.

You can walk back into the room and explain what the panel showed, what it changes and what you recommend next, with citations behind each consideration if the owner wants to know why. For many owners, hearing that the results are already part of the plan is reassuring in itself.