THE CATTLE VET CONSULTANT – HERD HEALTH SOFTWARE FOR ACV MEMBERS
Introduction
In the ideal world, farmers would have a detailed herd health plan that involved activities such as routine husbandry practices, vaccinations, parasite control, reproductive treatments and biosecurity activities that was created with the assistance of an expert who could ensure the appropriateness and correct timing for each component.
The Cattle Vet Consultant is a piece of software designed to allow veterinarians to create farm herd health management plans for farmers in the context of a veterinary consultation.
It is distributed to ACV members free of charge for their personal use as a member benefit.
The problem
Herd Heath programs can be complex. For example, the current MIMMs IVS lists over 30 vaccines that can be used in cattle. Choosing which vaccines would be appropriate for an individual farm and when they would best be administered requires knowledge and expertise, yet many farmers do not consult a veterinarian regarding vaccines, and many only consult a vet about one vaccine at a time.
Vets are experts in vaccines, parasite control and reproductive management but anecdotally, many do not do find themselves being used as the primary consultant on many farms where they probably should be.
The “fire brigade” nature of veterinary practice promotes a tendency to look forward for the next few days or weeks
The Cattle Vet Consultant (CVC) allows vets to create personalised herd health programs for farmers, to send reminders for herd health activities, and to consolidate the information so that inventory and workload can be better managed.
Program Templates
CVC allows vets to make their own “Program Templates” for different management systems.
Different templates can be created for different management groups which could be different species, or even different variations on the same species. Different individual vets can have their own favourite templates.
For example, in the Seasonal Calving Dairy template supplied with the program, a date question “Mating Start Date” and a number question “Duration of calving” is specified. An activity “Drying off” could be created that commenced at Mating Start Date +225 days, and lasted for the “Duration of Calving” days. Similarly, reproductive treatments can be specified with reference to Mating Start Date, and vaccines could be scheduled at drying off time. A further question about when bulls are purchased allows for VBBSEs and bull vaccinations to be scheduled.
The templates allow for “Standard activities” which occur in every program, and “Optional activities” that can be selected or deselected when designing a program.
“Optional Activities” are actually collections of activities that can be added all at once. For example, an Ovsynch program might contain three injections and some AI days which can all be added with a single mouse click.
All activities can have default “email templates” associated with them, which can be sent out as reminders at pre-determined times.
Creating a program for a farmer
Creating a program for a farmer is a matter of sitting down at the computer, choosing the management groups, answering the date and number questions and then choosing the optional activities. Examples of optional activities are shown in the image below.
This framework provides the opportunity for having a sensible conversation with an individual farmer about a whole range of activities that can easily be missed, with a view to creating an individual, tailored plan.
The image above shows an individual plan under construction.
Clicking on the green tick or red cross in the bottom left box adds or removes the optional activities. In the above image, “Ovsynch” is highlighted in the bottom left box, and you can see the three activities associated with this in the template are highlighted in the box on the right.
The activities on the right with an envelope icon next to them have a reminder email associated with them.
Once an individual plan is created, any dates or emails can be manually changed.
Emails
CVC allows the planned emails to be sent, but this is a manual process which involves selecting the emails that are due and clicking the send button, which requires that someone regularly schedule CVC into their timetable.
As a general rule, software that sends emails without human intervention or oversight is dangerous!
Consolidation
Whilst it may be valuable to create plans for individual clients, there is also value in the consolidation of the data.
When a vet leaves the clinic, the program they have designed remains behind. Individual vets can see their upcoming planned workload. And practice managers can order vaccines and other drugs that may be planned.
Availability
The CVC will be available for the use of ACV members on a free, as is basis. We don’t guarantee it is fault free, but we do hope it will be useful.