Project Overview

Firstly, thank you for considering Digital Paradigms as a potential solutions provider for your animal census project.  Digital Paradigms provides leadership in bio-informatics software, bio-metric software, and meta-tracking solutions. Everyday we strive to bring you modern technology and digital processes to help automate your operation, and make your life simpler & more productive.

 We have worked long & hard at developing systems that are flexible, standardized and powerful enough to stand up to any business challenge. 

We bring together technologies such as MS-Access Client / Server, Palm Technologies, and Database Synchronization Technologies into one seamless solution – empowering our clients with real time information and business controls.

Simple Census ™

The Simple Census™ system is a kit of tools specifically tailored to automate your census capturing, cage card printing, and animal health reporting. It is an economical way to introduce bar-coding & handheld technology to your operation.  

The system is two paired down modules of the Animal Bioware Suite™; meant to allow your operation to quickly implement automation technology, while at the same time provide a leveraged platform that can be used to automate other areas of your operation in the future.

Product Scope

The Simple Census™ system was conceived as a gateway product to the larger Animal Bioware™ Series II Suite.  The system, is two Animal Bioware™ modules; which in concert allow your operation to automate the following areas:

• Bar-coded Cage Card Creation
• Mobile / PDA Census Data Capture
• Mobile / PDA Animal Health Data Capture
• Reporting of Animal Health and Census Data

Scalability

The Simple Census™ system can be expanded to any number of Palm Pilots and Facilities, to help service any number of Protocols, Investigators, Veterinary Technicians, and Husbandry Staff. 

As the Simple Census™ technology is absorbed by your operation; it can then be easily modified to start taking advantage of the other modules offered in the Animal Bioware Suite™.

Modules to consider after the Simple Census™  that make your operation even more productive are:

Animal Ordering Module

The Animal Order Module, lies at the heart of the procurement process.  Directly connecting to the IACUC Module for species/strain balances, and offering a wizard based web portal. This module will automate the entire animal ordering process. The module includes a PC interface for approving, allocating, and placing animal orders, as well as delivery reports, and predictive reports. It is also the starting point for your husbandry staff to quickly create bar-coded cage cards.

IACUC Module

The IACUC Module is where it all begins.  The first ever wizard based online protocol creation tool makes the creation of protocols, amendments, and annual reviews as simple as clicking Next.  The module then allows for online committee review, approval, and revision requests, as well as, meeting & agenda creation tools.  The module automatically connects to the Animal Ordering Module, for balance calculation, and animal transfers.  It also includes automatic reminders of low balance situations, review dates, and emails investigators step by step throughout the IACUC process.

Palm Pilot Application

The Simple Census™ system’s mobile module is an application which resides on the Symbol Palm™.  It was created to allow mobile information to be collected and displayed out where the action really happens - at the cage.

The menu system allows personnel of various security levels to access different parts of the system based on their level.   The user can login in using a traditional user name & password, or to use a login barcode – which they place on their person, scan it, and gain automatic entry into the system.

Performing a Census

The system has been designed to perform a census rapidly, accurately, and as simply as possible.  The process is a simple click and point process.  The husbandry staff would merely do the following:

Scan the Room – Each room has a barcode near the door, which as they enter will be scanned.

Scan the Rack – Each rack will have a barcode on it, which will be scanned before performing a census.

Scan the Cages – This is a quick as a grocery store scanner.  Each cage is scanned one after the next.

When the husbandry staff person is finished, simply place the palm on its cradle, and push the synchronization button on the cradle.

Cage Card Printing

In Simple Census™ a cage card printing utility is supplied, that allows you staff or investigators to print cage cards.  This may be distributed across your organization and will directly connect to the back end server. 

We created this application to allow either your staff or research staff to print cage cards when they need them.  You may also wish to control cage card printing, and keep it to your staff only.  The decision is yours.

The application allows, for color cage cards as well.  This means that if your community is breeding a certain line, those cages could be one color and another line or strain another color.  This requires a color ink jet or laser printer to be present.

Also, the utility is pull-down driven, which means that your data stays consistent and accurate.  It also helps untrained staff know exactly what is required, and what the options are. 

Cage Cards

The cage cards that are produced may be printed without the need of a barcode printer, and print on standard Avery 3X5 cage card stock.  The card would contain all pertinent information, and color bars if requested.

PC - Census

On the PC, there are various components which allow you to manage your animal census program.  Some of the basic functionality is as follows:

Visual Census – At a glance, let your facility managers; see their census visually, in graph form.  They can also change the graphs to filter by Room, Rack, Grant, and many more options

Census Histories – Keeps your census information digitally, so that you can hold historical information on your census.  Whether the animal commissioner, USDA or other regulatory agencies need to view it, you have it.

Feed Billing or Other Systems – If you have to create a data feed for your billing system, you can easily export the census information directly into MS-Excel.

Census Reports

The PC has several reports available that allow you to understand your census.  These reports can be filtered by many criterion, some of which are:

• By Facility
• By Room
• By Protocol
• By Investigator
• By Grant / Project
• By Department
• By Species
• By Strain
• By Date

These criterion can also be combined, so that a multi-criteria filter can be created:

A concrete example of this might be: List the Census for all Mice, in Facility X, which has the person ‘John Smith’ listed as the investigator, for the month of January.

Reporting an Overcrowded Condition

Considered part of the Animal Health module, your care staff will have the ability to create an overcrowded cage condition, and to send emails to the investigators.

In order to record and send an overcrowding report, it s as simple as:

Scan the Room – Each room has a barcode near the door, which as they enter will be scanned.

Scan the Rack – Each rack will have a barcode on it, which will be scanned before performing a census on that rack.

Scan the Cages – Much like the census module.

Select the Reason – This is a pull-down option of the various reasons.

If the care staff would like to create a follow-up date, in order to create a reminder to go back and check the cage, or to give a deadline to the investigator’s staff to go back and check, that would be done on the second screen.

Mobile - Animal Health

Within the Palm application, is the Animal Health functionality, which allow care staff, veterinary technician staff, and veterinarians keep tab on your animal program. 

It has been designed for the first level staff to be able to go in, and quickly Scan Room, Rack, and Cage, and makes a quick diagnosis of severity, and body part.

Next, the veterinary technicians would receive an email report identifying the animal health issues for a certain facility, room, or cage, and create treatment plans & follow-up on those treatment plans.

Depicted below, are the various screens that empower your staff to start automating their animal health reports:

PC - Animal Health

On the PC, there are various components which allow you to manage your animal health program.  Some of the basic functionality is as follows:

Animal Health Record – Whether you would like to know the health history for a particular animal, or are auditing animal health for protocol pain category compliance, the system, gives a detail history of each health case, who reported it, the treatment plan, pain score, and much more.

Email Capabilities – This functionality allows you to send animal health information to Investigators, their staff, internal or external veterinarians.  You can automate your email process with automated alerts & reminders for follow-up.

Animal Health Reports – The report builder allows you to create animal health reports by many criteria.  You could be tracking an outbreak by room, or animal health issues by month, or simply just glean all the animal health issues by a certain protocol.

Administration

The PC application also contains an administrators module, that can be used to maintain the following:

• Facility Information
• Room Information / Cage Capacities
• Rack Information
• Staff Information / Security Levels
• Email List information
• Investigator / Requestor Information
• Vendor Information

Overview

By leveraging several well known and proprietary technologies, Digital Paradigms has created products that are highly modular, modern, and scalable. Our ideal architecture is to create modular building blocks of technology so that each applied use of that technology can be seamlessly connected, separately purchased, upgraded, and scaled. Key technologies in use & within our products are:

• Automation Technologies
• Barcode/RFID Technologies
• Database Client/Server Technologies
• Email Technologies
• Palm/Mobile Technologies
• Security/Encryption Technologies
• Web Client/Server Technologies

Web Technologies

In order to provide a standardized environment, one that is known, scalable, and supportable by your personnel, we have selected Microsoft’s .Net framework as our primary web technology.  The .Net platform is quickly becoming the most widely adopted web standard in business today.  Some of the components used in the system include:

• Microsoft’s Internet Information Server
• Windows 2000 / 2003 Server
• Visual Basic .Net
• Server Scripting such as ASP

Database Technologies

In order to reduce total cost of ownership, we have selected to support two database backend standards.  This model will allow you to use whichever database is native to your operation, without needing to purchase or create a new database standard.

In addition, we also offer hosted options, which allow you to utilize our hosted servers, located in level 3 fault tolerant & secure data centers across the country.

For our database backend standards, we have selected both Microsoft’s SQL Server 2000 /2005, and Oracle’s Database Platform versions 7-10g. Both of which offer

• Application Hosting
• Robust Server Architectures
• Database Clustering & Fault Tolerance
• Database Authentication & Security
• Intergradations with ODBC with .Net Servers
• Full Text Search

SPT1800  Palm Pilot

The scanner that we have chosen in our technology plan is Symbol’s SPT-1800 Palm Pilot.  The SPT 1800 offers ruggedized data communications capabilities.  It is available in both batch and wireless configurations, and operates on the standardized Palm platform.  Detailed attention to ergonomics and sleekly rounded edges provide a secure fit in the hand. At 7 in. 17.8 cm high the SPT 1800 easily slips into a pocket. Weighing just 10.6 oz/300 gm, this powerful productivity tool is a perfect fit for our project.

The scan engine in the SPT 1800 family is the SE 900 from Symbol Technologies. This state-of-the-art scan engine, the smallest, lightest and brightest available today delivers premium performance even at ranges of up to 30 in. 76.2 cm. The SPT 1800-2D houses the SE 900HS high-performance scan engine, optimized for PDF417.  It includes a high-contrast, anti-reflective liquid crystal display makes data easy to read in low light or outdoors. A rechargeable lithium-ion battery and optional single- and multi-slot cradle configurations.

Front End Technologies

Due to its widespread adoption, and support, we have selected the MS-Office Access 2000-2003 platform for our front end.  This product is standard in most business and institutional environments, and has built in report writing, and query creation tools. 

Animal Bioware Intelligent Agent  Software

The Animal Bioware Series II Intelligent Agent has been developed by Digital Paradigms in order to seamlessly integrate between various data sources.  The Agent’s flexibility provides for easy creation of synchronization jobs, and allows for disjoined systems to be connect–regardless of data types or sizes.  Functionality includes:

Data Sources / Destinations

·         Palm Pilot Synchronization

·         MS-Access connectivity

·         Send Key functionality for remote automation

·         Any ODBC driver connectivity

·         Any OLE Database connectivity

·         SQL Server connectivity

·         ISAM Data Sources (Excel, Text, Dbase)

·         Ability to Run Access Modules

·         Ability to Run .EXE programs

Flexibility

The software is completely flexible, allowing for the change of field names, sizes, and data types.  The agent can be changed by a system administer to connect to virtually any data source, if that source should change, the agent can be reconfigured on the fly – with no programming or development. 

Audit Trail

The agent includes a full event log type audit mechanism, and security mechanism that can easily report directly into an NT/XP/Windows 2000 event log. 

Connectivity

The agent can sync data via several connectivity models. The agent can sync via a Wireless Gateway, the Internet, Directly via WAN drive, or via standard ODBC connectivity drivers.

Offerings

Digital Paradigms offers a range of choices when it comes to helping your staff work with any of our products and many of the technologies that we offer in our suite. We offer in-house onsite training, web based courses, and a training facility at our Boston site.  Some of the offerings are:

• Basic Bar-Coding
• PDA/Mobile Device Operations
• Animal Bioware™ Modules
• Simple Census ™
• Animal Bioware ™ System Administration
• Introduction to Report Writing
• Introduction to Database Admin
• Intermediate Database Admin
• MS-Access Development
• SQL-Server Development
• Advanced Bio-Informatics

Identity

Throughout this document, you might have seen that we often co-brand the system to reflect your operation.  If desired, we place our client's logos, department names, and contact information throughout the product. 

We feel that this helps create a point of identity within your organization, and allows for a seamless look with your SOP’s, forms, and other literature.

Certification & Memberships

In order for Digital Paradigms to provide high quality products and services, we ask all of our staff to be certified in their field of expertise.  We utilize consultants, veterinarians, research staff, IACUC coordinators, and many others to help with the testing & creation our products.

Customization & Consulting

In addition to our product offerings, we offer customization, development, and database architectural services.  This allows our clients to further integrate our services to their environment.

We also have integration & consulting services available, to help with the effort that a system’s integration may require.  This helps eliminate much of the burden of project management & IT coordination that may be required for a particular system implementation.

Animal Industry Partners

Our animal industry partners have helped us create a modular system that has more overall functionality than any other product on the market today.  In each case, our clients have helped us grow our system and in many cases brought field level expertise to help with its development.

Non-Industry Partners

Our non-animal industry partners have looked toward Digital Paradigms for our bar-coding, business process development, or database expertise.

Abstract Presented at 55th AALAS 2004

In October 2004, Digital Paradigms in conjunction with Massachusetts General Hospital – Center for Comparative Medicine, presented an abstract & case study, which analyzed the efficiencies, compliance, and productivity enhancements experienced by using the Simple Census™ system in their operation.  Areas of most improvement are as listed this section:

Billing Accuracy Improved

One of the most visible areas to senior management which improved was in the area of billing accuracy & billing turn around times.  Protocol and grant billing errors were reduced, more cages were billed, and the time to invoice was greatly reduced – as depicted below:

Census Time & Effort Reduced

Another area of dramatic improvement was in census speed, and the number of staff required to perform a census.  Not only did the census speed improve, but this increase in productivity allowed for daily census rather weekly census, and the results were much more accurate.

Census Accuracy

With the automated census, and its direct connection with protocol, grant, and investigator information, virtually all census data errors were eliminated.

Cage Card Compliance Increased

Another area of improvement is in the area of cage card compliance.  The cage cards are printed much more accurately as the housing process starts, and are kept updated in the system; and are easily reprinted.   All  of this keeping the cage card compliance rates much higher versus the manual systems.

Clinical Rounds Response Time Reduced

In the area of animal health, the veterinary technician response times were greatly reduced.  This can be directly correlated with the system wide emails that are sent to Investigators and staff, and by the pager alerts sent for extreme animal health issues.