Mobile Apps for Veterinarians

The field of veterinary medicine is constantly evolving with new best practices, breakthrough treatments, and innovative techniques to keep pets in optimum health. To provide the highest level of care, veterinarians and their staff must stay abreast of all these changes while maintaining a smooth-running clinic, healthy patients, and happy owners. To accomplish all of these goals, many veterinarians are turning to technology to help them succeed.

Mobile apps that can be downloaded to a phone have become ubiquitous and essential to veterinarians. Apps can provide on-demand expert knowledge, calculate medication dosages, provide detailed anatomical descriptions, and allow clinicians to chart on the go. Not only can apps help a clinic run smoothly, but they help reduce burnout, medication errors, and misdiagnoses.

If you run your own veterinary clinic or work for a veterinarian, chances are you already use a vet app on your smartphone, and, perhaps, are looking for more. Our list of veterinary apps below for iPhone or Android are geared toward diagnosis and treatment for use in animal health care.

Several apps on our list feature calculators to help determine drug dosages, constant rate infusions, drip rates, and more. Others have note-taking tools, guides for terminology, and news feeds or updates. However, you needn’t be a veterinarian to use this list. Vet students and others in the field can find the tools helpful for learning and instruction.

Featured Mobile Apps for Veterinary Professionals in 2023

Compendium of Veterinary Products: This app, available through iTunes or Google Play Store, features more than 6,300 biological, feed medication, pharmaceutical, and parasiticide product monographs. Users can also access contact information for more than 200 product distributors or manufacturers through this app, which is sponsored by Bayer. A biological index and withdrawal time charts are among other app features.

• Cost: Free to download, $1.99 per month for access to data

DVM Calc: Veterinarians, vet techs, and vet students working with small animals may find this app useful. Available through iTunes, the app features 26 calculators, 15 constant rate infusion calculators, and 15 toxicity calculators. It was developed by veterinary specialists and emergency veterinarians, so the interface is easy to use. Each calculator has detailed explanations of how they work to provide context. A note function also allows vets and vet techs to take notes of up to 300 words for each patient.

• Cost: $5.99

Horse Anatomy: Equine 3D: This app is available on multiple platforms and is ideal for equine veterinarians, students studying large animal and equine science, or horse owners who want to learn more about horse anatomy. The app covers bones, muscles, organs, and superficial landmarks. This app lets you cut through layers, rotate the horse, and examine individual parts. Each covered structure features a close-up view, audio pronunciation, and comments. A quiz on more than 350 structures is provided.

• Cost: $9.99

Merck Veterinary Manual: This manual is a comprehensive on-the-go go manual for veterinarians and students seeking information on diagnosis, treatment, and animal disease prevention. Available for Android and Apple, this app features more than 1,100 color images, tables and charts, and audio and video examples. Installing this app is a two-step process. You need to download the app and then download the manual separately, which can take up to 10 minutes.

• Cost: Free

Vet Blood Tests Guide: Veterinarians can find differential diagnoses for blood tests and reference values for small animal care on this app made for Android. Categories include electrolytes and metals, hematology, hormones, and nutrients and metabolites. Specifically, vets can check out information on albumin, cortisol, hemoglobin, lipase, protein, red blood cells, sodium, and many other substances.

• Cost: $9.99

Vet Calculator: Designed for Android, this app can aid veterinarians, vet students, and technicians who need to do calculations to determine drug dosages, body volumes for transfusions and phlebotomy, constant rate infusions, and much more. It can also perform conversions between common units of measurement, allowing this app to be useful in multiple countries. An upgrade is available that includes even more calculations and options.

• Cost: Free

Vet Drugs Veterinary: This app for Android lists more than 600 drugs in use in veterinary practice for cats and dogs, as well as the dosing information, indications, other names, and precautions for these drugs. Vets who don’t see a drug on the list can email the developers who say they will add it in for the next version.

• Cost: $4.99

Veterinary AliveECG: Veterinarians can receive ECG results instantly by snapping the AliveCor Veterinary Heart Monitor (which costs $199 through alivecorvet.com) onto their iPhone. Once the device is installed, veterinarians can use the app to begin recording ECGs. Notes and ECGs can then be stored in the cloud for later use.

• Cost: Free for the app; a $199 snap-on monitor is required

Vet Nurse Quick Reference: This app, available for Android, acts as an easy and quick reference guide for veterinary nurses. The app includes biochemistry ranges for cats, dogs, and rabbits; a note-taking option; and calculation tools for doing body surface area, gas and liquid flow rates, and transfusion and infusion. Definitions for more than 300 terms and references for 20 common surgeries for small animals, from hamsters to dogs, are also featured.

• Cost: $1.99

Vet PDA Calcs: Put out by the University of California, Davis, this app gives users access to 21 common and useful calculators that include bicarbonate dosing, corrected calcium, drip rates, equine fluids, temperature conversion, weight conversion, and much more. Each calculator has a custom information sheet that describes how to use it and why. A custom input keyboard makes calculations on this iPhone app easy to do and understand.

• Cost: $4.99

Dog Anatomy: Canine 3D: Created by Real Bodywork, an educational anatomy app developer, this app visualizes the canine body. With over 300 anatomical structures, users can cut through layers of the body, rotate the model, and zoom in on bones, muscles, and organs. Quizzes are included in each section to help students determine their level of retention and understanding of each area.

• Cost: $4.99

Foal CPR: When foals are born, they can often require resuscitation. This specialized process differs from one large animal vets do every day, so this handy app walks you through the process from start to finish. There are step-by-step videos and a soundtrack for performing CPR to ensure you have the correct pacing.

• Cost: Free

vet-Anatomy: Available on both iPhone and Android, vet-Anatomy is a comprehensive animal anatomy atlas. It is one of the most expensive apps on the list but offers some of the most in-depth information about animal body structures. Designed in partnership with veterinarian Dr. Susanne Boroffka, this app includes x-rays and MRI images for the most accurate and detailed representations. For international veterinarians, this app is offered in ten different languages and even includes the official Latin names

• Cost: $12.99 per month or $89.99 per year