Consultations
Consultations and second opinions
A rapid test result often raises a question, from the owner or from the clinician. SNOW keeps those conversations in one place, beside the patient's recent results and history. Owners ask their own practice, the team answers from one queue, and a clinician who wants another view can ask a colleague.
All of it can be read and answered from a phone.
Questions from pet owners
A pet owner with an account at a practice that uses SNOW can send the practice a question, often about a test result, from a phone or a computer, and chooses how it is answered when live chat is switched on.
Ask a vet
A veterinarian at the practice replies, and the AI assistant stays out of the thread.
Live chat
An assistant labeled as AI replies without waiting for a person and asks a few questions about the animal. A veterinarian at the practice can read the thread and take over at any time.
Every thread lands in one practice queue, unassigned, and nothing is assigned automatically. A veterinarian or practice administrator claims a thread and answers it. Technicians can pass a thread to the right person. The team can also open a consult itself, which stays internal unless they choose to share it with the owner.
A consultation is advice and stays separate from the medical record.
AI intake, with a veterinarian behind it
In a live chat, the assistant gathers the history a front desk would ask for. It asks one question at a time and skips prevention and medication when the record already has them.
When what an owner writes matches fixed rules for signs of a possible emergency, an instruction to call the clinic or an emergency service now goes at the top of the reply, and the thread is marked urgent in the queue.
For the team, the assistant writes a short hand-over with the key points, how soon follow-up looks needed and suggested notes for the record. A clinician accepts or declines each note with one click. The assistant is instructed never to diagnose or to name a drug or a dose.
Owner chats, with the parts of the record the assistant needs, are sent to an outside AI service, which writes the assistant's replies and the team's hand-over.
Asking a colleague
From an open consult, a veterinarian can ask a colleague for a second opinion. A colleague who wants to be asked lists the areas they advise on, such as internal medicine, dermatology or tick-borne disease, and the species they see.
The software suggests who to ask by matching those areas against the case, including the species, the test and what was positive, and the words in the owner's question and the assistant's hand-over. Each suggestion shows its reason, for example “dog · Lyme disease positive · mentions lameness”. The suggestions follow fixed rules, and no AI chooses the colleague.
The software can also mark a consult as worth a second opinion and say why, such as an unclear result, an urgent case, a case outside the areas the answering clinician lists, or a hand-over in which the AI found the story unusual for the test.
The colleague answers in a written note that only the clinical team sees. The clinician who asked keeps the thread and decides what to tell the owner. The owner never sees the opinion.
Colleagues at other practices
A second opinion can also come from a colleague at another practice. This is off until the administrator at each of the two practices turns it on, and the colleague must also have chosen to take questions from outside their own practice.
When the case involves an owner, nothing is shared until the owner agrees. The owner can tap Allow in their own account, or the clinician can record consent given in person, by phone or by email, and the owner can withdraw it later.
The colleague never opens the patient record. They see a case card, which the clinician who asks can preview before sending it. The conversation so far, including the practice's replies and the assistant's, comes through with the assistant's hand-over, the owner's and the animal's names replaced by placeholders such as “[the dog]”. Later messages on the thread are added as they arrive. The contact details, microchip number, ZIP code and date of birth on file are left off.
Taking names out of free text is never perfect, and anything else written in the conversation, such as a phone number, comes through as written. So the card opens only for the colleague who was asked and only while the owner's permission stands. Every opening is logged.
Answering from a phone
Everything in a consultation works in a phone's browser. A clinician sees a count of what needs them, such as threads they hold that are waiting for a reply, and can open a thread and answer it wherever they have a connection. Owners have their own phone view, which they can add to their home screen.
Companion iPhone app
A companion iPhone app for reading tests and answering consultations is in development, with notifications that reach the phone even when the app is closed, so a new question or reply finds a clinician wherever they are. Until then, everything above that is built works in the phone's browser, and the count of what needs a clinician updates while SNOW is open.
For the veterinarians who answer
Answering a second opinion takes a colleague's time, and the software is designed to acknowledge that help.
Recognition
The clinician who asked can mark an opinion as helpful, say whether it changed the plan and send thanks. Colleagues who help consistently earn marks such as Responsive and Good neighbor, and each veterinarian sees a summary of their own recent months. There is no leaderboard.
Your listing
Each colleague chooses whether to be visible to other practices, and can pause their listing whenever they need to.
Payment and software credits
We are exploring a way for practices to pay for second opinions answered at other practices, and for colleagues who help to earn software credits toward SNOW. Neither is available to practices yet.
If you would like to answer second opinions for other practices as they join, write to us with the areas you advise on and the species you see.
The attending veterinarian makes the call
A second opinion is a note between colleagues and never advice to the owner, and the animal's care stays with the attending veterinarian. SNOW promises owners no response time for any consultation, and the AI assistant is not a veterinarian. Like everything else on this site, the software is in development and is not a cleared or approved diagnostic device.
| Part | Status |
|---|---|
| Questions from owners, by Ask a vet or live chat | Built |
| AI intake, hand-over and record suggestions | Built |
| Second opinions within a practice | Built |
| Second opinions between practices | Built; waiting for practices to join |
| Recognition for colleagues who answer | Built |
| Payment and software credits for answering | In development |
| Consultations on a phone | Built, in the phone's browser |
| Companion iPhone app | In development |