Share thisToday’s animal care facilities can increase efficiencies of routine husbandry management tasks by utilizing the numerous automatic data collection technologies available.
Implementing automatic data collection technologies within the animal care facility should be a collaborative effort involving all of its stakeholders. The enterprise system should provide visibility to the many users having varying requirements for the data. A properly planned system will accommodate all of the team’s needs and provide the necessary security to protect the institution.
Portable data terminals and scanners can utilize the wireless network computer infrastructure available to connect to database servers in real-time. Modern data collection systems tie back to centralized databases through the local area networks (LAN) available within the institutions. Administrators, veterinary technicians, and investigators can access these databases via the Internet fromanywebbrowser.The serious issue of security is addressed using controlled authorization access, data encryption techniques, virtual private networks (VPN), and comprehensive vigilance of the computer network. Additionally, due diligence must be done to insure that radio signals from the various sources do not interfere with each other or cause harm to the personnel or animals.
Cage Census Using RFID Technology
Principal investigators often challenge the accuracy of their billed services and census reports. Tracking the current location of every cage housed within a large animal care facility requires continuous monitoring and extensive record keeping. Radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging of each cage allows for real-time, error free electronic detection of hundreds of cages per second thus allowing the animal census of a room to be reconciled immediately.
Properly designed RFID tags can survive repeated autoclave sterilization. Their ability to mount on metal gives the added advantage of tagging industry standard stainless steel cage cardholders. This mount on metal feature also shields the RFID tags from being read from their back surface, preventing tags to be inadvertently detected through walls and other structures which can show up as errors during the census reconciliation process.
RFID tag technology features anti-collision properties so that hundreds of tags can be read in seconds using a portable RFID reader. In addition to taking animal census, these tagged cages can be individually identified as they pass through cage washers. RFID readers attached to the washers can identify each cage and integrate the wash process control data with the cage tag identifiers providing an accurate record of each wash cycle.
Using the RFI cage census, the enterprise application could manage associated per-diem billing reports, breeding colonies, veterinary electronic medical recording, sanitation schedules, physical asset tracking, and other routine tasks. Automatic data collection systems using RFID technology will soon find many new applications within the laboratory facility.