VetCompass Australia: A National Big Data Collection System for Veterinary Science

Abstract

Simple SummaryThe VetCompass Australia program collects real-time clinical records from veterinary practices and aggregates them for researchers to interrogate. It delivers Australian researchers sustainable and cost-effective access to authoritative data from hundreds of veterinary practitioners, across Australia and opens up major international collaborative opportunities with related projects in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.AbstractVetCompass Australia is veterinary medical records-based research coordinated with the global VetCompass endeavor to maximize its quality and effectiveness for Australian companion animals (cats, dogs, and horses). Bringing together all seven Australian veterinary schools, it is the first nationwide surveillance system collating clinical records on companion-animal diseases and treatments. VetCompass data service collects and aggregates real-time, clinical records for researchers to interrogate, delivering sustainable and cost-effective access to data from hundreds of veterinary practitioners nationwide. Analysis of these clinical records will reveal geographical and temporal trends in the prevalence of inherited and acquired diseases, identify frequently prescribed treatments, revolutionize clinical auditing, help the veterinary profession to rank research priorities, and assure evidence-based companion-animal curricula in veterinary schools. VetCompass Australia will progress in three phases: (1) roll-out of the VetCompass platform to harvest Australian veterinary clinical record data; (2) development and enrichment of the coding (data-presentation) platform; and (3) creation of a world-first, real-time surveillance interface with natural language processing (NLP) technology. The first of these three phases is described in the current article. Advances in the collection and sharing of records from numerous practices will enable veterinary professionals to deliver a vastly improved level of care for companion animals that will improve their quality of life.

Describing the antimicrobial usage patterns of companion animal veterinary practices; free text analysis of more than 4.4 million consultation records

“…De-identified data was sourced from VetCompass Australia (Version 0.3) (2013-2017 inclusive) [18]. Clinical data from 93 practices was required in order to be 95% confident that the estimated rate of antimicrobial usage (AMU) in the 3,222 veterinary clinics of Australia was within 10% of the actual rate of AMU, based on Cochran's formula for the representativeness of proportions [32].…”

“…This centralized repository of clinical records gives a unique opportunity to examine records that are otherwise held in individual clinics. VetCompass Australia currently has 181 participating practices representing 5.6% of 3,222 of the Australian veterinary clinics [17,18] There have been several studies from VetCompass UK covering antimicrobial usage patterns, disease prevalence, and causes of mortality [19][20][21][22][23][24]. Similarly, the Small Animal Veterinary Surveillance Network (SAVSNET) is another centralized repository of veterinary records that has also reported on antimicrobial usage patterns [25,26].…”

Pilot prescription survey of antineoplastic agents: real‐world data from veterinary teaching hospitals in Japan

“…VetCompass Australia, a nationwide big data collection system for veterinary science, was started in 2017(McGreevy et al . ); likewise, VetCompass has been running in the UK for 7 years (O'Neill et al . ,).…”

“…,; McGreevy et al . ). In Japan, both in veterinary practices and even in veterinary teaching hospitals, most patient records are still stored as paper‐based health records or separate data in individual medical devices without connection to hospital management systems (Tanaka ).…”

Using natural language processing and VetCompass to understand antimicrobial usage patterns in Australia

“…The VetCompass database represents the largest corpus of veterinary records available for academic research and enables large scale analysis of veterinary medicine. 4 Insights from analysis of big data can help to develop an evidence base to support clinical decisions and create more effective policies to drive better outcomes. 5 Notes, written prescriptions, label text and inventory items dispensed were successfully extracted for each consultation from the VetCompass dataset.…”