There are different tools producers and technicians can take advantage of when coordinating disease control. Dr. Erin Johnson, Boehringer Ingelheim (BIVI), talked about a couple of these during the North American PRRS Symposium at BIVI’s breakout session.

“One of our big data gap problems is we have a lot of data on the farm, but we don’t translate it very well into usable information. We evaluated four different apps that are readily available to anybody and we selected iFormBuilder. It’s simply an app that you can put in any survey and gather that information easily on a phone, upload it and use the information quickly and easily.”

Dr. Johnson says they hope to gather information as simple as medications given and farm mortality rates. This could expand to farms involved in vaccine trials or other projects.

“We are just showing people that there are tools out there that they can use. We can help them use them and evaluate which is best. The challenge is when they (producers) are worried about confidentiality. Who has access to that information, who can download it and see it. Again, they have to be able to use the information. If you are not going to use it. There is no point in collecting it.”

Learn more about the iFormBuilder app and how it can be utilized on the farm in my complete interview with Erin here: Interview with Dr. Erin Johnson, Boehringer Ingelheim

Find all the photos from the event here: 2014 BIVI PRRS Seminar Photo Album