OPD is forgiving. If you forget a detail on a routine consult, the pet goes home and you can catch it later. IPD is not forgiving. A missed vital, a skipped dose, a lost note — any of these can cost a life.

Here's how to run a tight IPD workflow in a small animal practice.

Structured admission, not chaos

When a patient is admitted, capture these fields at the moment of admission:

  • Presenting complaint + tentative diagnosis
  • Admission weight (not the last recorded weight — admission weight)
  • Cage number / ward
  • Admitting vet
  • Expected duration of stay
  • Owner contact + communication preferences

If you don't capture all of this at admission, you'll be chasing it later.

Vitals every 4 hours (minimum)

Temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, mucous membrane color, CRT, hydration. Every 4 hours for stable patients, every 1–2 hours for ICU cases.

Don't record vitals on paper. The person who recorded them and the next shift vet often never actually speak. Digital records with timestamps solve this.

The treatment sheet IS the record

Every drug given. Every IV fluid rate. Every procedure. Timestamped. With who administered it.

If it's not written down, it didn't happen. If it's not timestamped, you can't prove it.

SOAP notes at shift change

Every shift change = one SOAP note. Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan. It's the single best handover tool in medicine.

Discharge summary that matters

On discharge, the owner should walk out with:

  • What was done during admission
  • Current medications (dosage, frequency, duration)
  • Follow-up date
  • Red flag symptoms that need immediate re-admission
  • Billing summary

If you're writing this by hand for every patient, you'll cut corners. That's how things get missed.

How ClinicDesq handles IPD

We built the IPD module around the above workflow:

  • Structured admission form
  • Vitals entry with timestamps (every entry creates a timeline event)
  • Drug treatment with auto-dose calculator (mg/kg, volume, administered_at)
  • SOAP notes
  • One-click discharge summary with billing

The difference between a clinic that handles IPD well and one that doesn't is almost entirely about process, not effort. Get the process right, and the outcomes follow.

See the IPD module in action →