The annual report that must be submitted to OLAW is very much focused on the constitution and effectiveness of the IACUC, along with any changes that may affect the institutions accreditation. The report requirements are clearly defined on the OLAW pages, and are mostly obvious and easily collated (with a little preparation). However, it is true that for larger institutions, some of the report components may involve some tricky data gathering. This, of course, is where systems such as Elements may assist!
When considering the help that Elements may provide for “regulatory” reporting, customers typically focus on USDA reports and AAALAC accreditation, or where the reports include some aspect of animal use, animal numbers, or protocol content. Elements can obviously be of great help here in collating data that is rather difficult to gather via other means. But for OLAW reporting, numbers of animals and protocol content is not really a consideration.
However, if used properly, Elements can easily provide the details of the IACUC membership during the course of the reporting year, and can also capture the minority views recorded by any member as part of any protocol review. It is even possible, with a little imaginative use of Elements, to get the semi-annual review dates!
Now, it is true that Elements does not provide “canned reports” for the above items, so it may take a little work based on the flexibility provided within Elements (areas such as Meeting Form design, and custom report design using TOPAZ Reporter, for example). But this is the beauty of Elements – with an understanding of all the flexibility inherent in the system, and a little imagination, it’s possible to use Elements effectively for almost any date capture and reporting!
