Digitizing the veterinary formulary

• Main Author: Hennedige, Kalana Manika
• Other Authors: Huang Shell Ying
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Information systems::Database management; Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Information systems::Information interfaces and presentation
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165980
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Veterinary medicine has made rapid strides in diagnosing and treating patients, with advances in drug development enabling veterinarians to diagnose and treat a variety of illnesses more effectively. More precise and specialised drugs have allowed for better targeting of treatments and more accurate dosing. However, little attention has been given to software catered to the veterinary field, more specifically to building and using databases for veterinary drugs; evidence of this would be the fact that manual calculation of drug doses is still commonplace in many veterinary practices. Manual calculation subjects these final doses to the risk of human error, increasing the likelihood of mistakes or inconsistencies in dosage. This project addressed this issue through the development of a digitised veterinary formulary, which in this case was the BSAVA Small Animal Formulary Part A: Canine and Feline (10th Edition). This digitised formulary was generated through the development of a flexible customized formulary parser. This made formulary information much more accessible to veterinary professionals. We also developed a software application, Vetscription, demonstrating some of the features and functionalities that could be implemented using this digitised database. Vetscription was subsequently tested at a local veterinary practice to evaluate its usability and functionality, and was well-received by veterinary staff. The responses showed that Vetscription made label generation much faster through the automation of tedious intermediate calculation steps, which significantly reduced the likelihood of human errors. This digitised formulary is the foundation for developing other software tools, which can be developed to enhance the drug dosage calculation aspect of veterinary software by improving the accuracy and efficiency of this process. This would result in streamlined processes and increased productivity, which would lead to better patient outcomes and happier staff for veterinary practices worldwide.