Insights – VetIMPRESS

Using today’s technology for better udder health care.

stuart@oxoncreative.com — Sun, 24 Nov 2024 16:43:52 +0000

Mastitis has a significant impact on milk quality and production as well as significantly contributing to antimicrobial use on farm. “The modern dairy cow has been bred and genetically improved to maximise their milk production,” explains Mr Riches. “As demands for increased milk yield rise, more significant stress is placed on the dairy cow’s productive capacity. This, coupled with other stressors such as housing, insect pests, any concurrent disease and inconsistent milking technique increases the risk of mastitis.”

Harnessing technology to monitor udder health

Mastitis can lead to significant economic losses due to treatment costs, having to discard unsaleable milk, and a reduction in milk yield, therefore monitoring udder health is paramount. VetIMPRESS, a technology platform can enable producers and their vets to look at key data to assess the level of mastitis at farm level and how effectively it’s being managed.

An example of the key data in VetIMPRESS which can give producers and vets that big picture view on mastitis is milk recording data. The data includes individual somatic cell counts (iSCC) which are a key indicator of udder health and infection, as well as being able to see clinical mastitis cases.

“Cells in milk include those shed from the inner surfaces of the udder as well as any white blood cells as part of the immune defence,” says Mr Riches. “In a healthy udder, the iSCC might be very low level, maybe 50,000/ml or less. When cows get mastitis, their iSCC increase dramatically as white blood cells flood into the quarter to tackle the infection. Clots found in the milk of cows with mastitis are mainly clumps of dead white blood cells. If a cow’s iSCC is more than 200,000 cells/ml, she is more likely to be infected with mastitis bacteria.”

The importance of data recording

When mastitis is observed, it’s important that producers record key information, whether by writing it in a notebook or capturing it on farm software. This should include the cow number, date mastitis first noticed, the affected quarters, and date of treatment, course length and withdrawal times. Other useful information to record includes the severity of the mastitis and the outcome of the treatment (success, fail, cull, lost quarter). Doing so allows any trends to be tracked over time and identify where corrective action may be required.

“Alongside your vet, think about monitoring the success of mastitis treatments, using cow SCC in the months after treatment as a measure. You should aim for under 20% of animals in your herd to have an iSCC equal to or over 200,000. Consider culling chronically high-cell-count cows. This is why it’s important to keep track of what’s going on on-farm over time,” explains Mr Riches.

Understanding the causes of mastitis infection

As well as monitoring trends, understanding why infection has happened can help producers determine the mastitis prevention and management measures they need to put in place.

Mastitis occurs when bacteria enter the teat canal. Infection can come from two different routes: infectious bacteria or environmental bacteria. Knowing the difference between the two can help producers prevent mastitis rather than just treat it.

“Infectious bacteria actually live on the skin of the udder, so can indicate poor hygienic methods in and around the cow at milking time,” says Mr Riches. “Whereas the environmental bacteria come from the environment where the cow is living, and that can be bedding, dirt on the floors and walkways, around water and feed troughs, field gateways, all of those kinds of areas.”

Hygiene levels on farm can be easily observed. Are cows’ udders, feet, and flanks dirty? Is there dirt around the top of the tail? Is milk being captured as hygienically as possible? All of this can be easily scored and tracked over time to see where improvements can be made.

“VetIMPRESS can help with this using its recording system to capture hygiene scores so producers can assess what’s going on at a farm level,” says Mr Riches. “There’s also a cleanliness scorecard on the AHDB website they can access.”

The role of teat scoring

Teat scoring is also a simple and effective technique for producers to consider. It provides a good indication of how clean and well-maintained milking equipment is and how well managed the milking process is. Poor milking technique can affect the teat end seal, which can lead in turn to an increased risk of mastitis.

“If cows aren’t being milked out properly, milkers are being too rough with them, and equipment isn’t being cleaned before and after, this increases infection risk,” says Mr Riches. “Carrying out teat scoring at regular intervals can help producers measure the effectiveness of the milking machine and parlour routine.”

Diagnostic testing for targeted treatment decisions

Another key to managing mastitis better is identifying which bacteria are causing the problem. Mr Riches stresses the usefulness of an udder health care solution which combines livestock health and production data with simple diagnostic tools in helping producers understand this.

“Simple bacteriology tools enable targeted mastitis management,” says Mr Riches. “A testing approach for mastitis management is much more sustainable than just treating it. It also supports the drive for responsible and appropriate use of medications.”

Producers who want to benefit from simple, precise diagnostics can consider utilising VetoSlide or Mastatest. VetoSlide enables the identification of gram -ve and/or gram +ve bacteria which can help inform treatment decisions. Where more detailed information is required, Mastatest identifies the actual causative bacteria and its relative antimicrobial sensitivity.

There are many factors affecting udder health and the advantage of using platforms like VetIMPRESS, to record important data, is the ability to access the information all in one place.

“Your milk data, hygiene scores, mastitis treatment records for individual cows- all of these give you the big picture view of what’s going on at farm level,” says Mr Riches. “On its own, each type of data is valuable, but together it’s invaluable, and informs a mastitis management plan which ultimately helps maintain udder health on your farm.”

Making good use of data to optimise Transition Cow Management (TCM)

stuart@oxoncreative.com — Sun, 24 Nov 2024 16:34:09 +0000

Ketosis increases the risk of other diseases and impairs production and fertility. Accurate monitoring of the cow in transition (1 month pre- and 2 months post-calving) allows good understanding of the animal, the herd and so to make data driven decisions to reduce health issues and maximise productivity.

“Traditional approaches to transition cow management often rely on subjective observations and estimations,” states Nicole. Today’s technology allows for much more informed decisions to be made by harnessing advanced analytics and real-time data collection during this critical period, providing actionable insights and recommendations.

“The more data insights we have to manage the transition period as best we can, the better,” says Nicole. “That is relevant to all diseases affecting the transition period and early lactation (such as mastitis and endometritis), as we know calving causes a dip in the cow’s immune function.

VetIMPRESS allow vets to record, and analyse this useful data in multiple ways and all in one place. Working proactively allows vets and producers to understand the relative ketosis risk levels by capturing the data that identifies the high risk or “SOFT” cows:

Sick: any animals sick in their dry period, or being lame
Old: in lactation 3 & above
Fat: animals with Body Condition Score (BCS) ≥3.5
Twin bearing animals

With smart technology in place, vets and producers can record and access data that supports the prevention of ketosis. Vets can look at BCS to identify those cows that are particularly at risk, BCS ≥3.5 or incredibly thin animals,” says Nicole. “They can also identify any animals that have been recently lame via mobility scoring and foot trimming reports – these animals may struggle to get to the feed face and take in enough dry matter to fully support them and their pregnancy.”

“Further information such as fertility data (i.e. twin-bearing), ketone sampling results, and lactation history, along with any lab reports relating to transition cow management can provide a detailed picture of the cow’s health. Looking at these trends over time builds a complete view.” adds Nicole.

Enabling a proactive approach

Data insights help vets and producers make more informed decisions about how they can best support high-risk animals as well as enabling them to take a proactive rather than reactive approach.

“You’re not going to prevent every cow from being too fat or too thin, or from getting lame, or having twins. So, the focus is on using the data you have captured to enrich your decision-making. Instead of firefighting diseases like ketosis and endometritis, you can put steps in place to prevent them,” explains Nicole.

“With VetIMPRESS, lists of animals at high risk of ketosis are auto-generated, based on data collected, for the vet to check,” explains Nicole. “This list can be sent to the producer ahead of a visit, ensuring better communication and collaboration between all stakeholders, and maximising the productivity and efficiency of the vet’s routine visit.”

Having access to a comprehensive report which highlights key performance indicators, identifies potential risks, and suggests tailored interventions, empowers producers to proactively address challenges before they escalate. “This allows producers to work alongside their vet to identify the best ways to prevent problems, rather than letting them rumble on, and trying to deal with them when they happen post-calving,” says Nicole. “The reactive approach is going to have a huge knock-on impact on the cow in her next lactation. If the transition period isn’t smooth, she is going to come into her peak yield later, she is not going to get in calf as quickly, and as her immune system is weakened, she will be more susceptible to picking up infectious diseases such as mastitis.”

As well as helping vets and producers make more effective decisions, having accurate data, in a centralised location, enables better collaboration between everyone working on the farm.

“The reports which VetIMPRESS can generate are clear and easy to understand, and they can be emailed straight away to producers, vets, and anyone else working with the farm . This means everyone is informed about what is happening on farm. Getting everyone working together and good communication leads to better outcomes,” says Nicole.

Harnessing data for more sustainable farms

Harnessing data and working in a collaborative and preventative way also helps producers run more sustainable farm businesses.

“Producers have so much data and information available to them now, it’s just about working out how they use it as efficiently so they can try to optimise their transition cow management,” says Nicole. “if they work in a preventative way, they will have not only healthier, more productive cattle, but they will be more sustainable in that they will waste less milk, reduce medicine use, and increase the longevity of their cows.”

The average dairy farm in the UK with an average level of mastitis loses over £15,000 per year through lost milk and medicines1. At a time when costs are spiralling and milk prices haven’t been good, there is more of a need than ever to focus on efficiency and sustainability, as well as cow health and welfare” says Nicole.

Capture services, advice and accurate billing with seamless on-farm data recording

stuart@oxoncreative.com — Sun, 24 Nov 2024 16:28:56 +0000

Nicole Baldry BVSc BSc (Hons) MRCVS, Vetoquinol’s Farm Animal Business Manager for the south of England, explains how VetIMPRESS can help practices keep track of the products and services provided to their farm clients.

“As a farm vet myself, I know if it’s been a demanding day and I’m tight for time or if it’s the middle of the night and I have to attend an emergency, I tell myself that I won’t bill the work now, I’ll do it later,” says Nicole. “Then when I eventually get round to doing it, sometimes I don’t remember what I did. Did I use my anti-inflammatories or the farmer’s? How long was I actually on farm doing the job? Often I won’t remember unless I record what I’ve done and billed for it there and then.”

Noting this data in real-time is not just important for accurate billing, it’s crucial vets record information such as correct batch numbers and expiry dates when they administer medicines. This is information they are legally obliged to give their farmer clients. So how can vets record data on farm quickly and easily? This is where VetIMPRESS can help.

With VetIMPRESS, vets can capture data all in one place, from lab test results, to services provided, to consent forms, and medicines administered. The lab reports section of VetIMPRESS includes a tick box to indicate if a lab case has been billed or not. As well as bringing efficiency to the practice, this also ensures that everything is properly captured and billed.

“Vets who use VetIMPRESS just need to log in on their tablet or phone, then they’ll be able to easily do things like create delivery notes with itemised lists of services and treatments provided which they can send directly to farmers,” explains Nicole. “The VetIMPRESS “medicine cupboard” accurately tracks stock whether in the dispensary or in a vet’s car, meaning information such as medicine batch numbers and expiry dates are pre-loaded so farmers will receive those as well to ensure they stay compliant.”

Once the delivery note is completed by a vet, vet tech, or foot trimmer, it is stored in the system, so anyone with access can view the information. Colour coding enables staff to see what has been billed (green flag) and what has yet to be billed (red flag), and so can be chased up. This creates a more effective and transparent way of working across the vet practice.

“For vets, this visibility of data means if a colleague has seen a cow on a Friday night and you go out to see her the following morning, you can easily find out exactly what your colleague did, and which treatment was given.”

“Being able to generate reports on body condition score, mobility score, foot trimming events and lab work helps vets build up a picture of animals over time. This makes their services more valuable to both the farmer and the practice,” says Nicole. “As soon as a vet has done the work, they can create a report at the click of a button. This report can be sent straight to the farmer who can instantly see the result of the work completed.”

VetIMPRESS helps to demonstrate the added value the vet, vet tech, or foot trimmer service can provide. Nicole points to the example of a practice describing how VetIMPRESS works with its vet techs and foot trimmers. The result has been the creation of a bespoke service for farmers.

“The vet techs visit the farm for mobility scoring and sometimes body conditioning scoring, and the farmer pays for a scoring service,” explains Nicole. “The vet techs then send their scoring reports to the farmer, the farm’s vet, and the foot trimmer, who goes out the next day and makes sure that all the lame cows are identified for foot trimming. They then generate a report from their foot trimming which goes back to the vet and the vet tech. Everyone is kept informed about what’s going on and it gets people to talk to each other about the situation on-farm.

For Nicole, VetIMPRESS is the solution that could bring farm animal veterinary practice in line with vets who work with domestic animals.

“When you take your dog to the vet, the vet would immediately put information on their practice management system about the medicines they gave along with the batch numbers and expiry dates. There would also be consent forms and other information that all of the other vets could see. Why should that be any different for cows and sheep? With VetIMPRESS, it doesn’t have to be,” says Nicole. “All data relating to the individual animal is recorded in one place, in real-time, for all relevant stakeholders to access, whenever they need it. So don’t leave the practice without it!”

Forging working relationships across the practice to deliver standards of care.

stuart@oxoncreative.com — Sun, 24 Nov 2024 16:11:27 +0000

There are a number of factors which can lead to a different or new member of the practice becoming involved in a case or call-out, some of which are outside of the practice control, so having a system in place which enables access to up-to-date information ensures continuity.

Improving day-to-day efficiency

Chris Sansom (Head of Customer Operations for Farm Vet Systems, within Vetoquinol) discusses how VetIMPRESS, can improve day-to-day efficiency, collaboration and support vets in maintaining good standards of care.

“If a vet is called out to see a cow and records in VetIMPRESS the work completed, their colleague can see that information when they visit that same animal two days later,” says Chris. “Farmers really appreciate that continuity of care and will often ask for a particular vet because they trust them and know they understand the farm. However, this is not always practical, so the alternative is having tools and systems that allow and support continuity of care across the team.”

VetIMPRESS also has the capability for farmers to give vet practices consent to see their farm animal data. This is important in the light of recent changes to how veterinary practices consider an animal to be under their care.

In small animal practices, this is straightforward. A dog owner visits a practice, and a record is kept of every time the dog is seen and what vaccinations, medicines or treatment it is given. It is clear from the client and the vet’s perspective that the animal is under the care of that practice.

With farm animals, it tends to be non-patient specific; a herd or flock is under the care of the practice, but how is that made explicit? VetIMPRESS makes it clear and explicit.

“For farmers, there’s a clearly defined way within VetIMPRESS to confirm that they accept their animals are under the care of a vet practice and give the practice access to their information,” says Chris. “The system links to the government database for that farm and then the vet practice has access to all the individual animals recorded on that farm.”

Maintaining high Practice Standards

UK veterinary practices are assessed every four years against RCVS Practice Standards aimed at promoting and maintaining the highest standards of veterinary care.

“From speaking to customers, it’s fairly universal that many of them see RCVS Practice Standards as a significant driver for change,” says Chris. “They want a more efficient solution to maintaining their current standards and/or the opportunity to achieve a higher standard without significantly increasing admin.”

VetIMPRESS provides a process-driven solution and is helping vets achieve higher levels of Practice Standards in several important ways. One area in which it enables them to follow best practice is recording surgical consent. Whenever a vet performs surgery on a farm animal, they should record surgical consent. Currently, vets might ask farmers to sign a paper consent form, which is not practical, or they may speak to the farmer and obtain a ‘cover all’ consent. VetIMPRESS provides the ability to digitally record surgical consent on farm at the time of the procedure in a way that is more in line with RCVS guidance.

“Vet practices will have adopted a mechanism by which they record surgical consent which may be acceptable to an RCVS assessor,” Chris explains. “However, it may not be best practice according to the RCVS guidelines.”

Chris also points to the example of the need for consent for the use of medicines prescribed under the cascade.

“Assessors will want to see evidence that medicines used off-label have been clearly identified to farmers and that informed consent has been obtained for their use,” says Chris. “RCVS guidelines say that it is not acceptable to use an all-embracing general lifelong consent for off-label medicines. VetIMPRESS provides a best-in-class digital solution for recording consent and adhering to the guidelines.”

The system can also assist vets with different aspects of clinical governance by allowing them to record cases in enough detail, so they are able to regularly review outcomes and adapt the way they practice.

Vets have their own way of recording the work they do, and this often involves entering information into a practice management system. For example, if a vet performs a caesarean on a cow, they may record which client it was, what they did, any medicines given, and the cost of those medicines and treatment. What they won’t have is the individual patient records for each cow.

“With VetIMPRESS, vets have the ability to go to a farmer client’s records, identify the actual cow with its unique official ID, and record all the clinical information they need against it,” says Chris. “Not only does this potentially allow vets to audit their own clinical services, but it also enables them to contribute to wider industry research on evidence-based practice.”

Enabling informed treatment decisions

Having access to individual animal records can help vets make better informed and more effective decisions based on not just what they see in front of them on farm, but on precise data. For example, if vets are treating mastitis, and they have access to lab data from milk samples and on which pathogen they’re dealing with, they can make an evidence-based decision.

This ties in with the drive to ensure the appropriate use of medicines on farm. Alongside enabling vets to make precise decisions and administer the right treatments, VetIMPRESS helps vets achieve Practice Standards around medicines.

While a practice management system will enable vets to record information like product type, category, date, and batch numbers, VetIMPRESS does all of this while allowing the vet to know the history of the animal they are treating.

“It’s easy to see how all of this joins together,” says Chris. “If you have farmers willing to share their animal data and vets can record everything they do against an individual animal, you can understand how this leads to better outcomes, including being able to treat an animal appropriately.”

VetIMPRESS also assists with the labelling of medicines. There are existing systems which allow labels to be produced, mostly these are located in the vet practice and are used mainly for items which are pre-dispensed to the farmer. VetIMPRESS enables on-farm dispensing.

“When a vet is on farm and they’re having to make a treatment decision and dispense from their own mobile pharmacy in the back of their car, those drugs should be accompanied by a detailed, fully compliant label,” Chris explains.

“VetIMPRESS allows vets to produce and print a label there and then. I don’t think there are too many tools out there which allow vets to do that.”

There are plenty of ways in which VetIMPRESS helps vets achieve high Practice Standards and it doesn’t have to be complicated.

“Ultimately, using today’s technology with tailored software can make mundane tasks easier and less onerous, leaving vets with more time to push their boundaries clinically and spend more time with their farm clients,” says Chris.

Harnessing data for better hoof health

stuart@oxoncreative.com — Sun, 06 Oct 2024 11:01:14 +0000

‘Healthy Feet’ is one of six strategic goals aimed at helping the UK maintain its status as a global leader in animal health and welfare innovation in practice.

When it comes to optimising hoof health, a proactive lameness management plan is crucial, and the key to a fit-for-purpose plan is good data.

Keeping better data on cow health is one of the most efficient ways of measuring improvements, demonstrating progress, and identifying issues early. This is where VetIMPRESS can play a hugely positive role, the platform enables the dairy industry to make real progress when it comes to identifying where action is required to enhance animal health and productivity.

Vets are increasingly using VetIMPRESS to record real-time data on-farm, developing and quickly accessing individual animal records, and using the insights to inform herd health management actions. This allows for active decision-making and better outcomes for farm clients.

For vets, foot trimmers, and farmers, VetIMPRESS enables simple and effective collection of lameness and mobility scores cow-side in real time. The result is a clear picture of hoof health, all in one place.

VetIMPRESS allows the industry to demonstrate progress against initiatives such as the UK Dairy Cattle Welfare Strategy. With all the data vets and farmers need on one platform, assessing and enhancing animal health is straightforward.

Easier analysis is just one reported benefit in a case study illustrating how a veterinary business uses VetIMPRESS to manage their lameness services.

Synergy Farm Health, a team of vets and vet technicians operating across South-West England, use the platform to collect mobility scoring, foot trimming, and body condition data.

The biggest benefits the team has found since introducing VetIMPRESS is the ability to access a full and detailed animal history on farm and having a central place to store and share reports with farm clients.

Vet technician Daryl Foot explains the difference that using VetIMPRESS has made to their practice.

“VetIMPRESS gives you a full and detailed animal history and it’s constantly updated so you have the most recent data from BCMS and NMR,” says Daryl. “This is useful if you’re on the farm and nobody is around as you can view the animal’s history and see if she is in calf or if a routine trim is needed. The other thing that’s really useful is we can instantly send a report off to the farmer at the end of our visit. This means our customers are getting a better insight into herd health and performance, and what we’ve done during our visit.”

More detail on the Dairy Cattle Welfare Strategy 2023-2028 is available here.