The best healing bang for the buck is a wand of cure light wounds (or wand of lesser vigor if you're using Spell Compendium), but the downside is that you generally need to use a lot of charges to bring characters back up to fighting strength since each charge only heals a relatively small amount. This requires time, and as such, is best used after combat when time isn't usually much of an issue.
Clerical healing, on the other hand, and especially from high level spells, tends to heal much more damage per spell. As such, it is best used in the middle of combat, when someone's hp drop to dangerous levels. IMHO, that's when the cleric should be using their healing spells, not after battle touch-ups. Using wands and potions in the middle of combat tend to be last-ditch efforts to save characters, useful as a last resort for when there's nothing better available, but a poor substitute for a cleric packing cure critical wounds.
Clerical healing, on the other hand, and especially from high level spells, tends to heal much more damage per spell. As such, it is best used in the middle of combat, when someone's hp drop to dangerous levels. IMHO, that's when the cleric should be using their healing spells, not after battle touch-ups. Using wands and potions in the middle of combat tend to be last-ditch efforts to save characters, useful as a last resort for when there's nothing better available, but a poor substitute for a cleric packing cure critical wounds.