Veterinary Burnout to Balance: Heidi at Greencross Vet Hospital
Heidi Team
17 March 2026•6 min read
Greencross Vet Hospital x Heidi at a glance
"I used to hate sitting down at the end of the day having to write my records. Now, I can walk out of the door at 6:00 p.m." - Dr Luke Johnston, Head of Department (Small Animal Medicine) at Greencross Vet Hospital at the University of Melbourne
Key outcomes:
Reduced 3-4 hours of overtime per week by eliminating after-hours documentation
Improved client experience, with clinicians able to be more present during consultations
Reconnected clinicians with patient care, restoring energy and morale
Created a more sustainable model of documentation for future veterinary professionals
Part of a national rollout across Greencross Vets - a network of 160+ clinics and hospitals across Australia. This case study reflects just one part of a larger transformation. Heidi is now the official ambient documentation partner for all Greencross Vet GP clinics, specialty centres, and emergency hospitals nationwide.
Greencross Vet Hospital in Melbourne is one of Australia’s largest and most advanced veterinary teaching hospitals. It forms part of the Animal Referral & Emergency Network - Australia’s largest specialty and emergency network and tertiary level referral institution.
In partnership with the University of Melbourne, this site plays a dual role: delivering complex clinical care, and training the next generation of veterinary professionals.
The rollout of Heidi began as a strategic initiative by Dr Marcus Verstraelen (Business Growth Manager) and Joel Nugawela (General Manager Strategy & Innovation), to address rising clinician fatigue, inconsistent documentation, and administrative overload. It is now fully used across the Greencross network - shaping a new, sustainable standard for how veterinary teams document patient care.
Challenges
Veterinarians at Greencross Vet Hospital, like Dr Luke Johnston, were facing a mounting challenge: how to stay clinically present without letting documentation fall behind. For many, the only solution was working longer hours - at the cost of their wellbeing and work–life balance.
Documentation fatigue and overtime
“I used to spend hours and hours doing notes - going home doing them, doing them on weekends.”- Dr Luke Johnston
With no additional time allocated for note writing during shifts, clinicians either rushed through documentation or took it home. The administrative load was unsustainable - and deeply demoralising.
Broken client connection
“When the vets turn away from the client and patient to type up their notes, it impacts the relationship.” - Joel Nugawela
Typing during consultations made clinicians seem less present. Eye contact was lost. Trust weakened. And the quiet moments that make clinical care rewarding were being eroded.
Lack of fit-for-purpose tools
“We didn’t want a straight transcription tool. That just adds more time afterwards” says Joel.
After trialling various voice-to-text solutions over several years, none had delivered meaningful time savings - especially in the veterinary sector, where medical language is niche and complex.
Solution
Greencross began searching for something different - a tool designed not just to transcribe, but to understand and summarise clinical consultations in real time.
They found Heidi.
Joel remarks, “Heidi met our needs: it works in the veterinary industry, and it has some smart analytics behind it.”
Heidi quickly became the default way of working across the hospital. With real-time recording, consults flowed naturally. Clinicians stayed focused on the patient, verbalised their findings, and let Heidi handle the rest.
“Heidi has streamlined my job quite a lot - I rely on it to help me to write my records and keep track of the patients that I'm seeing” says Dr Luke.
Even students and residents learned to model this method - creating more transparent, present, and teachable consultations.
Greencross' favourite Heidi features:
Real-time note generation: Notes are automatically created during the consultation, reducing the need to type at all.
Template personalisation: Clinicians can mould templates to reflect specialty cases, assessments, or discharge summaries.
Multi-context usage: From phone calls and surgical notes to meeting minutes - Heidi captures it all.
Impact
Dr Luke relishes, “Now I leave at 6 p.m. when my shift ends. I get to go home and spend time doing things I love outside of work.”
Heidi has transformed how clinicians at Greencross Vet Hospital work. By reducing the cognitive and administrative burden of note-taking, it restored time, energy, and presence across the hospital.
Key outcomes:
3-4 hours of overtime eliminated per week for many clinicians
Better patient and client rapport, with more transparency in consults
Improved morale and job satisfaction, especially for nurses and students
A cultural shift, positioning documentation as a sustainability challenge, not a KPI target
More presence, stronger relationships
“Clients really value hearing the results of the physical exam” says Dr Luke.
By verbalising their findings aloud, clinicians involved the client in the process - building trust and clarity without ever turning away to type.
From after-hours work to on-time finish
Dr Luke asserts, “If Heidi disappeared, I’d spend a lot more time on writing records and not in front of patients and helping them.”
Admin hours were slashed, allowing clinicians to get home on time, rest, and recharge - improving care delivered to patients.
A model for sustainable veterinary training
Dr Luke observes, “The effect for Heidi on the team is time management and having to get rid of the things that don't really give my team a lot of fulfillment.”
As a teaching hospital, Greencross Vet Hospital is showing the next generation that you can be thorough and present. That you can prioritise patient care and protect yourself from burnout.
What’s next
Dr Luke contends, “We need to be smarter about the sustainability of [the veterinary] industry and AI has to play a role in that.”
At Greencross Vet Hospital, documentation is no longer a silent source of fatigue. With Heidi, it’s an integrated, seamless part of care - and a daily reminder that better technology means better work for everyone. WIth utilisation of such technology vets can spend more time engaging with each other, discussing difficult cases, teaching interns, residents and students and enjoying time on the floor.
