
Thursday, September 1, 2005	Information technology & electronic communications in all aspects of the profession
Welcome to the latest version of AVINews Monthly. We'd love your feedback on our ongoing efforts to improve the newsletter and its format, so email us your comments: martinmkm@mminformatics.com
In This Issue: Executive Board Annual Meeting President's Comments Standardizing the Use of Standards	Book Review Continuing Education Employment Offerings In the News Membership Renewal Form
Executive Board Your officers for 2005-2006 are: President - Dr. Michael K. Martin President-elect - Dr. Stanley Robertson Secretary/Treasurer - Dr. Dennis Ballance Past President - Dr. Stephen Pittenger Feedback Please let us know if you have any suggestions or comments about AVI.

Annual Meetings

Believe it or not, it is time to start thinking about upcoming AVMA meetings! The schedule for Hawaii next summer is set, and we will soon be asking for submissions of paper topics for 2007. Many of us have a really hard time looking that far out and knowing what will be still be of interest. What will be timely almost two years from now? My best advice is to think in terms of broad content areas rather than specific details. That will allow Dr. Robertson and I to build a schedule that makes sense and get it to AVMA on time while still leaving you, the authors, the flexibility to adapt to rapid changes in our profession.

President's Comments

The end of summer and the beginning of another school year introduces a new year for AVI. The outgoing and incoming officers are busy trying to get all the administrative functions transferred. As a result, dues statements continue to be delayed. We will get statements out as soon as possible and will--of course--forgive anyone who misses the September first deadline.

I am trying to get this newsletter focused more closely Veterinary Informatics. This is the time of year that many of our projects are starting or restarting. It will help all of us to know what the rest of the members (you) are working on. The newsletter may be shorter than it has been lately, but more focused on what we are doing. Of course, if no one sends me any input, the newsletter will get very short. Thanks go out to Kimberly A. Smith for reviewing a book she has been using in her Master's program. We also have news of a recently funded terminology project at Virginia Tech. And I'll continue to include news from the Medical Informatics community and other sources as I think it has particular relevance to Veterinary Informatics. If you come across an item or link that you think your colleagues would be interested in, please send me the URL and a brief description.

I've also changed the formatting of the newsletter around a little. I did this for two reasons. First, the old HTML was too complicated for my simple skills. But second, I wanted to simplify the layout and focus on basic content. The new format will display on any relatively recent browser and adapt to any width within reason. It loses some formatting in some email readers but will stay readable I hope. Please let me know of any formatting problems.

Dr. Michael K. Martin

Standardizing the Use of Standards

Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine has been awarded a grant from the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) to develop a terminology service for the National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN). Every participating NAHLN laboratory must be able to submit information using standardized terminologies. Currently each laboratory has its own unique terminology integrated in its Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS). An efficient and cost-effective mechanism must be developed to provide terminology services that facilitate the use of the common terminologies. Project director Jeff R. Wilcke will be working with co-directors Kurt Zimmerman, Julie M. Green, and Michael K. Martin to achieve several goals:

Develop a process that will ensure the successful application of previously adopted standardized medical terminologies and thereby ensure the success of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network.
Provide a means for the member laboratories to access needed information and expertise.
Develop a long-term solution to providing continued support and resources in terminology development and their application.

Book Review

Medical Informatics : Computer Applications in Health Care and Biomedicine (Health Informatics)

Authors/Editors: Edward H. Shortliffe (Editor), Leslie E. Perreault (Editor), Gio Wiederhold (Assoc. editor),

Lawrence M. Fagan (Assoc. editor)

Resource type: Book

Edition: 2nd

Number of pages: 854

Publisher: Springer

Year published: 2000

ISBN: 0387984720

Price as of July 2005 (Amazon): $63.39; is also available used

While it is impossible for a single book to provide in-depth coverage of every topic in the broad field of medical informatics, each chapter in this book provides a thorough foundation crucial to further exploration. As such, it is used as the textbook for the Introduction to Health Informatics course in the graduate informatics program at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. This book is divided into three sections encompassing general topics; applications; and the future. Note that a third edition is reportedly being written. Sections and chapters are listed below; contributing authors are listed in parentheses.

Section I: Recurrent Themes in Medical Informatics

1. The computer meets medicine and biology: emergence of a discipline (Shortliffe and Blois)
2. Medical data: their acquisition, storage, and use (Shortliffe and Barnett)
3. Medical decision-making: probabilistic medical reasoning (Owens and Sox).
4. Essential concepts for medical computing (Wiederhold and Rindfleisch)
5. System design and engineering (Wiederhold and Shortliffe)
6. Standards in medical informatics (Hammond and Cimino)
7. Ethics and health informatics: users, standards, and outcomes (Goodman and Miller)
8. Evaluation and technology assessment (Friedman, Owens, and Wyatt)

Section II: Medical Computing Applications

9. Computer-based patient record systems (Tang and McDonald)
10. Management of information in integrated delivery networks (Safran and Perreault)
11. Public health and consumer uses of health information: education, research, policy, prevention, and quality assurance (Brennan and Friede)
12. Patient care systems (Ozbolt and Bakken)
13. Patient monitoring systems (Gardner and Shabot)
14. Imaging systems (Gardner and Brinkley)
15. Information-retrieval systems (Hersh, Detmer, and Frisse)
16. Clinical decision support systems (Musen, Shahar, and Shortliffe)
17. Computers in medical education (Dev, Hoffer, and Barnett)
18. Bioinformatics (Altman)

Section III: Medical Informatics in the Years Ahead

19. Health care and information technology: growing up together (Singer, Enthoven, Garber)
20. The future of computer applications in health care (Fagan and Shortliffe)

Recommendation: Highly recommended

Reviewer: Kimberly A. Smith, MS, MT(ASCP)

In the News

Bird Flu Could be Stopped -- If Everything is Aligned Right August 4, 2005

An emerging bird flu pandemic with the potential to kill millions of people around the world could be nipped in the bud if it were discovered within a week or so of its initial eruption and battled intelligently with drugs and quarantines, according to the first computer models to show how the disease would spread and what it would take to stop it. Complete Washington Post article (based on recent research published in Science Magazine) available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/03/AR2005080301806.html

Johanns Announces Key Component of Animal I.D. System

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30, 2005—Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today announced the Department of Agriculture’s guiding principles for development of a public/private partnership that enables the private sector to maintain animal movement data as part of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Read the announcement at http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/index.shtml or at: http://tinyurl.com/8w774

Implanted Chips Provide Access to Medical History August 15, 2005

NPR highlighted Many people wear metal necklaces or bracelets to alert emergency caregivers to special medical conditions. Technology may make it easier to get doctors this information. More than 1,000 people have tiny I.D. chips implanted beneath their skin that give emergency room personnel instant access to that person's medical information. Complete program available at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4800061

About AVI

Joining the AVI
You may renew or apply for membership in the AVI by completing an application and paying the annual dues. An application is also included in each issue of the AVI Newsletter. Membership is for a full year, expiring July 31 each year. You may select from several membership categories, work groups, and newsletter formats as described in the application. All member categories share the privileges of the newsletter and the communication services of the society. Full and corporate members have voting privileges. If you share AVI's interests, please join us.

Mission
The AVI, formerly the American Veterinary Computer Society, was formed to expand the use of the computer as a tool in veterinary medicine. This includes serving as an educational resource, promoting the use of information technology and electronic communications, and developing and promoting standards in veterinary information management.

Benefits
Membership benefits include the monthly AVI newsletter, participation in work groups, the AVI-L listserv discussion list, and an annual membership directory.

Levels
Membership incorporates a range of levels to encourage participation from all segments of the profession, veterinarians and non-veterinarians, as well as its supporting organizations. This includes veterinary practitioners and their staff, faculty and staff of veterinary?colleges, diagnostic laboratories, medical records personnel, medical librarians, students, software and hardware developers, and corporations supplying veterinary products and services. Over one third of the members are individuals working in the field of clinical veterinary medicine, one third are in academia, and the remainder are in industry, government, and other veterinary medicine. Membership is international, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia, as well as the United States.

Meeting
The annual membership meeting is held in conjunction with the AVMA Annual Convention and includes the one-day Richard B. Talbot Symposium on Veterinary Informatics and two days of general information on computer usage. The members of the Association are encouraged to write articles and/or make presentations regarding their experiences, as these are valuable to establish veterinary informatics as a legitimate discipline and to encourage individuals in the veterinary community to become more involved in the information age.

Application
Membership Application (HTML)
Membership Application (RTF)

Date: _________________

Association for Veterinary Informatics Application and Renewal Form

O New O Renewal of AVI membership # ______
Please circle change in address or other information.

Name: _________ ___ ____________________ Dr. First M.I. Last Mr./Ms.	Organization: ___________________________
Address: ________________________________________________	Phone: (_____) _____________
________________________________________________________	Fax: (_____) _____________
______________________ ____ __________ ________ City State Zip/PC Country	E-mail:_______________________

Membership Level

Level	Description	Dues	Rights
O Full	Individuals interested in the field of veterinary informatics	$35.00	Receipt of newsletter; participation in Work Groups; full voting rights; eligible for membership on standing committees.
O Associate	Individuals who support the mission and goals of the Society	$20.00	Receipt of newsletter; participation in Work Groups; no voting rights; not eligible for membership on standing committees. Limited to two years.
O Corporate	Corporations that support the goals of the Association	$100.00	Receipt of newsletter; participation in Work Groups; full voting rights (one per corporation); not eligible for membership on standing committees.
O Student	Students enrolled in any academic program interested in the field of veterinary informatics	$10.00	Receipt of newsletter; participation in Work Groups; no voting rights; not eligible for membership on standing committees.

Newsletter format desired: O Hardcopy O Electronic (E-mail address required):_________________ O Both

Membership includes participation in one Work Group. Please select one group from the list below.

O Practice Management Systems	O Data and Messaging Standards
O Communications and Networking	O Computer-Aided Instruction/Computer Assisted Learning
O Computerized Patient Records

Primary work or occupation: (Please note new categories.)

O Small animal practice	O Academic- Clinical, Education, R & D	O Industry, Government
O Mixed practice	O Academic, Other, Diagnostic	O Ophthalmology
O Large animal practice	O Other ____________________________	O Student

Current interest or involvement in veterinary computing:

O Basic computer usage in practice
O Advanced computer usage in practice
O Internet Usage
O Tertiary Center Medical Records

O Cutting edge computer technology
O Education; undergraduate, continuing, or staff
O Other ______________________________

What topics would you like to see in the newsletter or at the AVMA meeting? Other comments?

Dues are payable by August 1. Membership is from August 1 to July 31the following year. Dues must be received by September 1 of each year in order to be listed in the directory.

Make check payable to: Association for Veterinary Informatics

Mail dues and form to:
Dr. Dennis Ballance, Secretary/Treasurer, AVI
VMTH Computer Services
1 Shields Ave
Davis, CA 95616
E-mail: dwballance@ucdavis.edu

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