Clinical templates help your team document consistently, work faster, reduce errors, and focus more of their energy on patient care instead of repetitive admin.
Whether you’re brand new to templates or looking to fine-tune the ones you already use, this guide walks through the essentials: what clinical templates are, how they work in ezyVet, and how your team can use them to streamline everyday workflows.
What is a clinical template in ezyVet?
In ezyVet, a template is a pre-designed blueprint for creating documents, emails, labels, and templates for diagnostic results, which saves time by providing a consistent format and automatically populating information.
A clinical template is a type of ezyVet template specifically designed to help you record clinical information quickly and accurately. These templates provide a structured framework for capturing key details during patient visits, so you don’t have to start from scratch each time.
They’re also highly customizable, allowing your practice to tailor templates to specific workflows, specialties, or patient types. You can configure clinical templates to include predefined fields, prompts, suggested text, and automatically charge for relevant products and services.
Clinical templates can be used for a bunch of different record types, including:
- Physical exam.
- History.
- Procedure.
- Assessment.
- Plan.
- In-clinic note.
- Hospital note.
- Addendum.
- Diagnostic result.
- Revisit.
- Imaging report.
- Diagnostic interpretation.
By adjusting templates to match your team’s habits and your clinic’s protocols, you ensure that every note reflects your practice’s standards, improving both efficiency and record accuracy. The result is faster documentation, fewer errors, and more reliable records that can be easily reviewed, shared, or used for reporting.
Benefits of using clinical templates
Clinical templates offer a range of advantages that make a real difference in how your practice operates:
1. Save time
Templates reduce repetitive tasks by using built-in variables to automatically include patient and visit information, saving staff from typing it manually. They also speed up documentation, letting your team quickly create in-clinic and hospital notes, referral summaries, and other documents.
2. Ensure consistency
Using templates helps standardize documentation across your practice. Every clinician records key details in the same format, making patient records easier to read, review, and share. Templates can also be used to create “gold standard” treatment plans, helping maintain high standards of care.
3. Capture charges
Clinical templates can use billing triggers to automatically charge for pre-configured products and services. As you complete your notes, relevant charges are automatically added to the client’s invoice, ensuring that all billable items are accurately and consistently charged for. Standardizing your billing procedures minimizes the risk of missed charges while reducing manual data entry.
4. Enhance communication
Templates streamline communication both internally and with clients. Discharge summaries, referrals, and other client communications can be generated without typing from scratch. You can also tailor templates for different audiences, ensuring that clients and referring specialists receive the most relevant information.
5. Reduce cognitive load
With templates, clinicians no longer have to worry about remembering every detail or spending time formatting notes from scratch. Clear prompts and structured fields take the pressure off, making documentation feel more manageable - even during busy shifts. This not only supports better focus during consultations but also helps reduce end-of-day fatigue caused by catching up on paperwork.
How to set up a clinical template in ezyVet
Clinical templates in ezyVet typically use shorthand text and picklists to save time on entering repetitive information. So, before you set up a clinical template, you’ll need to configure your relevant shorthand text and picklists.
Picklists
A picklist is a handy feature in ezyVet that makes entering information in clinical templates quick and consistent. Essentially, a picklist is a predefined list of text items. When filling out a clinical template, you can simply select the appropriate item from the list instead of typing it out manually each time.
Picklists are usually set up by a practice manager, so the options remain consistent and standardized across the practice. Only users with the correct permissions can edit the items in a picklist, which helps ensure that the information recorded in clinical templates is accurate.
Learn more about configuring picklists in ezyVet!
Shorthand text
Shorthand text is another useful text feature for ezyVet templates, designed to make recording information faster and easier. With shorthand text, you type a short snippet, and ezyVet automatically expands it into a longer piece of text - whether that’s a single word, a full sentence, or even a paragraph. It’s a simple way to save time, reduce repetitive typing, and ensure your clinical records are consistent.
Learn more about configuring shorthand text items in ezyVet!
Clinical template
Once you have your shorthand text and picklists set up, you can start building out your clinical templates. To do so:
- Select the Admin tab.
- In the Settings dropdown list, select Templates.
- Select Clinical Templates.
- In the Template Name box, enter a name.
- Use the For settings to select the record types that staff can use with the clinical template.
- In the Plaintext box, enter template content (this is where your shorthand text and picklists come in!).
- Select Save.
Learn more about making a clinical template in ezyVet!
Once you’ve saved your template, you’ll be able to access it by selecting it in the Template box when performing a consultation. In the Comments box, add the applicable information and, if the template uses picklists, use the Tab key to cycle through each picklist option and quickly fill in the information.
Conclusion
Clinical templates are a powerful tool in ezyVet, helping your team document patient care quickly, accurately, and consistently. By using templates - along with features like shorthand text and picklists - you can save time, reduce repetitive typing, and ensure that every record meets your practice’s standards.
Want to see how clinical templates could help your practice save time and boost consistency? Book your FREE demo today!