AHL LabNote 48 - AHL Farmed Animal Submissions and Premises ID.

Relating a laboratory submission and its outcomes to a location is important to monitor disease occurrence in livestock.  Identifying submissions by farm of origin will help transform AHL data into meaningful information for surveillance of disease problems for veterinarians, agricultural organizations, and producers.

Premises Identification numbers (PIDs) provide:

• Unique identification – The PID accurately identifies farms and avoids duplicate or ambiguous records. The PID can assist veterinarians and producers in accurate billing and submission tracking.
• Privacy protection – The PID can be used instead of an owner name or address when monitoring disease outbreaks.
• A link to a geographic location – The PID allows epidemiologists to accurately map and monitor disease trends (being mindful of confidentiality).
• A common identifier – The PID can identify participants in industry and government projects conducted by organizations such as the Ontario Swine Health Advisory Board, OAHN, and OMAFRA.
• Sub-premises location identification – When a sub-premises ID is created, producers can use these to match laboratory results to specific barns or areas within their larger operation.
• Improved disease surveillance – PIDs enable more effective and timely disease prevention and control in Ontario livestock by helping to identify disease patterns.

For more information:     https://www.ontariopid.com/en-CA/

AHL strongly encourages all veterinary practices to use PID’s on all submissions to any diagnostic laboratory.  For participation in some Ontario programs (Ontario Swine Health Advisory Board, Ontario Animal Health Network bovine and small ruminant projects) it is already mandatory.

AHL has resources to help vet practices to obtain and maintain their client’s PIDs in a client database so that they can be easily retrieved for use on lab submissions. AHL’s Client Outreach Technician, Josie Given is available to help your clinic access and organize PIDs.

By helping you to set up the use of PIDs and electronic submission to the lab (another feature that we would be glad to discuss with you), we hope to make your submission experience the most efficient possible.

We thank those clinics that are already doing this and encourage others to get involved!

Sincerely

Jim Fairles DVM MBA

Client Services Veterinarian

519-824-4120 ext 54530 ahlinfo@uoguelph.ca