With the 2018 CALAS show approaching rapidly, it seemed a good time to talk about Canadian regulatory reporting! TOPAZ will be in the Exhibitor Hall at the symposium, so come and say “hello” if you’re attending.
Animal Facility Software generally contains a range of features that are agnostic between different countries. A mouse is a mouse no matter where you live. However, the regulatory environment varies significantly and this can impact the data that you have to collect and the format and content of the required regulatory reports. In all cases, the required reports use data from protocols, animal orders and usage records, but the way they are combined and the business rules around how to report animals are often complex and always vary between jurisdictions.
To accommodate the CCAC reporting needs, TOPAZ has added features to the Animal Protocols, Animal Orders and Animal Census modules to gather the required data.
The Protocol Forms designer allows users to include “Canadian reporting” fields on their protocol forms, such as Authorized Amounts by Gender, Protocol Description, Category of Invasiveness and Purpose of Animal Use. Data is gathered via the Animal Orders and Census Modules, and eventually appears in the Canadian Animals Received Report and the Canadian Animal Use Data Report, which live in the Census Module.
To use these reports properly, you do have to have certain other parts of the Elements modules set up in particular ways – we had to add the word “Canadian” to each report because other, non-Canadian customers were trying them out, and wondering why they didn’t make sense! If you are Canadian, give us a call and we can help you make sure Elements is set up correctly to help you with your CCAC reporting.