ï»ż Page 19 - Eclipse - Autumn/Winter 2022

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Page 19 - Eclipse - Autumn/Winter 2022
P. 19

CLINICAL NEWS












        the overall evidence base on breed-  In recent years, VetCompass has    routinely cited as a major limitation to
        related health in companion animals,   made extensive use of machine-learning   progress. VetCompass has aimed to
        especially in relation to the harms   to make sense of the enormous amounts   fill these data gaps by sharing these
        from extreme conformations such as   of data being recorded in veterinary   clinical data in a de-identified format
        brachycephaly. VetCompass evidence   clinics. VetCompass shares clinical data   from veterinary practices and merging
        is promoting improved animal welfare   on over 20 million UK companion animals,   them into a single dataset to enable
        through, for example, policy to shift   covering over 200 million clinical notes   research that benefits pets, owners and
        ownership towards higher welfare    and half a billion individual sales and   the veterinary community. To facilitate this
        breeds (‘Stop and think before buying   treatments – veterinary research is now   data for epidemiological research, the
        a flat-faced dog’ ukbwg.org.uk) and by   truly into the Big Data age. We now use   VetCompass team developed a secure
        contributing to evidence-based updates   machine-learning models of language   system for the transfer of anonymised
        to Kennel Club breed standards as   to identify cases for research and to   patient records from practices to a
        well as to breed health plans at The   understand the subtle contexts in which   central database.
        Kennel Club.                        veterinarians mention diseases without   VetCompass is a community that
                                            implying that their patient suffers from it.
        Launched in 2016, the ‘VetCompass                                       is committed to open access to all
        Australia’ project extended the șÚÁÏÉç’s   We have also created diagnostic tools,   information generated from our research.
        international vision for companion   such as an endocrine prediction model,   Papers are open access for free
        animal health data collection for   that can calculate the probability of   worldwide impact and are readily findable
        disease monitoring and surveillance.   future diagnosis, based on case notes.   on the VetCompass library. In addition,
        VetCompass Australia supports       We also created a tool for vets which   most papers have an accompanying
        research projects at all seven Australian   facilitates the process of clinically coding   infographic that summarises the major
        veterinary schools and has over 10 peer-  patients and made this available free on   findings in an easily digestible format and
        reviewed publications.              the internet.                       that are open access for anyone to share.
        VetCompass has also extended its    THE CRITICAL ROLE OF THE            A free VetCompass app can
        research interests from dogs and cats   VETERINARY COMMUNITY            be downloaded to IOS or android
        to also cover a wide range of exotics,                                  phones that enable students to enhance
        with current projects exploring the   Prior to VetCompass, the full potential   their clinical reasoning skills by exploring
        health of ferrets, rabbits, guinea pigs,   for the vast wealth of animal health data   the anonymised clinical records of
        rats, tortoises and snakes. VetCompass   recorded and stored by practices was   over 20,000 dogs from the real first
        projects are also researching the health   largely untapped. This represented a   opinion world.
        and care of horses and cattle.      huge loss for animal welfare, where   Find out more at www.rvc.ac.uk/
                                            a deficiency of good evidence was
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