Alight folks, today, we’re channeling our inner Dorothy Gale and pulling back the curtain on Digitail’s AI Tails — revealing how the magic works behind the scenes. I sat down with the man behind the magic, Alex Hasmatuchi aka Hasma aka The Great Wizard of Tails.
Get ready to have all your pressing questions about this groundbreaking technology answered as we do a deep dive into Tails the AI assistant, native to Digitail’s Practice Information Management System (PIMS).
For those not familiar with Tails, I’m so glad you’re here! Let’s start at the beginning. Basically, Tails is your new best friend and tireless assistant in the veterinary hospital. Tails is an AI-powered assistant within the Digitail software designed to make the computer part of the job easier.
When writing this (our engineers are coming out with new features so fast it’s hard to keep up!) Tails has the power to streamline the patient intake process, summarize patient histories, listen in on exams and turn those transcripts into organized SOAP notes, offer vets differentials and treatment plan support, and generate personalized client communications and discharge instructions, just to name a few.
Tails is represented by a fox 🦊 to symbolize agility, intelligence, and resourcefulness—qualities that perfectly align with Tails AI. Foxes are known for their cleverness and adaptability, traits that we’ve designed Tails to embody in his quest to assist veterinary professionals in managing clinic operations efficiently.
Let’s go back to around the time when OpenAI secured a huge investment of 10 million dollars. Back then, our team wasn’t easily convinced about AI, or its potential. It took some cajoling from Alex Hasmatuchi, one of our head developers, for us to really take a look at what AI could do.
Simply put, we were blown away.
Initially, our development team harnessed AI to turbocharge their coding processes, making software development faster and even more reliable. Then our product team and marketing team began to find ways to use AI, experimenting with various AI tools and….
It was a game changer – I know it’s cliche but it’s true!
This boost in efficiency freed up resources, paving the way for further innovations from the team. It was now obvious to everyone at Digitail that AI had huge potential to provide the same efficiency boost for veterinary clinics – something we knew was desperately needed to help alleviate the staffing shortages and high rate of burnout rampant in the veterinary industry.
But where to start?
Our first proof of concept involved using AI to analyze user search queries within Digitail, which laid the groundwork for what Tails would become. We began working with 10 Digitail clinics, who became design partners utilizing the earliest versions of Tails and providing valuable feedback to help our team customize Tail’s capabilities to serve their needs better.
With their help, we pinpointed three main areas of focus for Tails.
Other than the standard voice-to-text capabilities, Tails AI Dictation has the ability to “listen in” during the exam between DVM and pet parent, filter that conversation, eliminate the superfluous chit chat (we’re thrilled Sally hit a home run at t-ball, we really are, but that doesn’t need to be in Fluffy’s medical record) and organize the pertinent info into a concise, organized SOAP in just minutes.
Imagine a vet having their exam notes completed BEFORE leaving the exam room. Seriously, no vet likes writing records, and no support staff likes chasing vets to write their records. It’s a literal dream come true, even saving one of our clinics 50+ hours a week!
Dr. Liza Price, Riverside Vet
This side of Tails operates much like popular AI tools such as ChatGPT, Bard, and Claude, but with a significant twist tailored specifically for veterinary practices. Just as you would interact with ChatGPT using specific prompts and receiving conversational responses, you can interact with Tails within Digitail’s software. And if the response isn’t quite right, you can guide Tails to improve its replies based on your needs.
And because Tails is part of Digitail, it can securely access patient and client information, providing you with relevant and accurate insights without compromising data safety. This ensures that Tails can pull the necessary data to assist with tasks like summarizing medical records, analyzing files, and generating personalized treatment plans, all while keeping your data safe.
To make getting the most out of Tails Assistant even easier, we’ve created a prompt library in Digitail that guides you through common queries and tasks. This library helps you get exactly what you need from Tails without having to figure out the right commands on your own. Whether you need to summarize patient histories, analyze files, offer decision support with diagnostics and treatment planning, or generate personalized client communications, Tails Assistant has you covered.
What if you already have all your prescreening questions answered and viewable in the medical record BEFORE your patient’s pet parent enters the clinic? All without your team lifting a finger? Pairing Tails AI Patient Intake, and Digitail’s pet parent app have given clinics the power to do just that. Pet parents can start the check-in process up to 3 days before their appointment, allowing them to provide vital information about their pet’s health before their upcoming visit – all from the comfort of their homes! This gives clients the experience they are craving while saving front-line staff an average of 8 minutes per appointment.
Tails is not just based on one AI model; it’s a whole squad of AIs working together. We use pre-trained models just like OpenAI, AWS, Claude (Anthropic), Meta, and Mistra, which our AI engineers can then tailor for specific tasks.
“We have a chain of AIs specialized in different scenarios… Each AI is tuned using prompt engineering at a level that doesn’t exist in the open-source models.” – Alex Hasmatuchi
Tails processes information dynamically, adapting to the unique needs of each clinic through prompt engineering. It guides the AI step-by-step, supporting a user-friendly interface and customizability.
For example, when processing a SOAP note, Tails breaks the task into easy steps:
This layered approach makes sure every detail is captured perfectly.
Using multiple AI models instead of one helps us stay flexible and ensures the best performance without breaking the bank. It’s all about making your life easier and your clinic more efficient without any of the hassle or concerns with standalone AI tools.
TLDR: The AI models that makeup Tails do not store data. Tails, which lives within Digitail, only stores anonymized input and output data that is used solely by our engineers to further improve Tails’ functionality.
When it comes to data security, Digitail goes above and beyond to ensure that all patient and client information is protected to the highest standards. The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a stringent European regulation known for its rigorous data privacy standards, which we have adopted to ensure the safety of each hospital’s data.
However, one of the tricky aspects of using AI is ensuring that the models used do not improperly retain or misuse data. To avoid this, we have established enterprise agreements with all the AI models we use that stipulate that any data processed by these models is deleted within a few hours of use. This ensures that no data is permanently stored or reused without consent.
Tails processes data on the fly in real-time and securely stores only the necessary input and output data. This input and output data is stored in the same repository used for all clinic data, including patient and client information. Centralizing this data within Digitail ensures consistency in data management and eliminates the risk of leaks. This also means your data is not scattered across various third-party servers.
It bears repeating that Digitail operates independently from third-party pressures, meaning your data is never sold and will never be used for purposes other than enhancing your practice’s efficiency.
Tails isn’t just an AI tool you plug in and hope for the best. It’s baked right into Digitail, offering a wide range of capabilities, everything mentioned above as well as image and PDF processing and patient insights. This holistic approach ensures a smooth, cohesive experience without the hassle of juggling multiple standalone applications. We’ve always aimed to be the all-in-one solution for vets. By integrating AI into Digitail, we ensure that every aspect of your practice benefits from AI’s capabilities, not just isolated tasks.
As I mentioned, Tails assists with everything from patient intake and medical history summarization to treatment planning and client communication. To support these features, safe and secure access to patient and client data is required, and with Tails, you don’t have to worry about how standalone AI tools are accessing or storing your data. Tails is part of Digitail’s secure system.
And don’t forget, we’re not tied to any big conglomerate, so our loyalty lies with you, the user. Your data security is paramount; we’re committed to keeping it safe. Tails securely accesses patient and client data, ensuring all information is handled with the highest privacy and compliance standards. This way, you can trust that your data is always protected and used solely to enhance your practice, not someone else’s bottom line.
Tails is designed to continuously improve through its interactions. While it doesn’t undergo training in the traditional sense, it learns from user inputs and adjusts its responses accordingly. By analyzing the previously mentioned anonymized input and output data, Digitail’s engineers fine-tune the AI’s performance. This dynamic learning process allows Tails to evolve without compromising user data privacy.
Alex Hasmatuchi elaborated on this process:
The biggest advantage of Tails is that it can learn automatically based on interactions. When users provide feedback on the AI’s outputs, Tails adjusts accordingly.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the learning process isn’t static.
We don’t read every single log manually. We use AI to analyze the logs, classify them, and identify patterns in user interactions. This helps us understand what works and what doesn’t, allowing us to make informed adjustments.
And Digitail ensures that these improvements are done in a way that respects user privacy.
We anonymize all data before analysis. This way, we can learn from the data without compromising individual privacy. The AI models we use are legally bound to delete data after processing, ensuring that no information is retained longer than necessary.
By continually refining Tails based on real-world use data and user feedback, we can ensure that it stays relevant, effective, and trustworthy. This commitment to continuous improvement means that Tails gets smarter and more capable over time, providing increasingly valuable support to veterinary professionals who are leveraging it.
Digitail is always innovating. Future updates will focus on further automating workflows and integrating new AI-driven features to reduce administrative burden even more. We aim to have veterinary professionals spend as little time using a computer as possible. We aim to enhance every aspect of the administrative practice, from communications to patient file management, helping your veterinary clinic run more efficiently.
By prioritizing AI development, we ensure new features are designed to maximize efficiency and effectiveness, helping you to achieve your goals. Imagine a world where you spend less time on paperwork and more time on patient care AND still get home on time—that’s the future we’re building with Tails.
Your ultimate AI-Powered Veterinary Assistant built right into your practice management software!
