Efficient veterinary document management can improve animal traceability and help in disease control.

1. Government Develops a Document
Management System for Improved Animal
Traceability
The Washington Department of Agriculture is developing an animal
traceability system to ease search and accessibility of cattle records. Efficient
veterinary document management can improve animal traceability and help in
disease control, says an expert and the department is going by his advice. An
efficient and accurate animal disease traceability system would be able to easily
identify diseased and at-risk animals, which would allow the department to take
quick action. The aim of the Animal Disease Traceability (ADT) project is to
modernize methods and processes for the collection, storage and query of animal
health, animal movement and change of ownership information in order to achieve
current and future objectives.
Need for Animal Traceability System to be in Digital Format
The efficiency of document management would depend on digitization of the records
Documents in the Department of Agriculture include information on animal
movement, change of ownership, brand information, and disease and test reports.
Records that are paper-based would have to be converted to electronic format. This
would involve document scanning as well as data entry. Automated entry can
minimize manual data entry and automatically capture and deliver accurate data into
document management systems.
Digital document management is superior in many ways:
• Paper documents are difficult to search out, access and manipulate, while
electronic documents come with advanced search capabilities.
• Digital documents can be easily converted from one format to another.
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2. • Digitization improves the security of the records as they can be password
protected.
• Electronic documents can be easily stored and preserved with backup for
disaster recovery.
The electronic animal traceability system would offer many benefits:
o Ease of management of documents
o Allows instant sharing of documents among relevant personnel
wherever they are located which enhances animal traceability and
regulatory compliance
o Makes it easy to find specific information easily and quickly
o Improves accuracy and legibility of documentation
The animal traceability system would include information on documents showing
animal movement, change of ownership, brand information and disease and test
records. Filling the existing gaps in the data would help officials locate affected
animals easily and steps can be taken to prevent the spread of the disease. Without
the animal traceability system, it would be impossible to successfully identify the
outbreak of an infectious animal disease, or to respond effectively to a chemical
residue incident.
In any industry, the organized collection, processing of information in accordance
with defined procedures is much easier with professional help from a document
management company.
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