[Survey among livestock practices on herd health management and an Internet-based animal health portal in Switzerland].
The importance of herd health management in Switzerland, its implementation by veterinarians as well as their willingness to collaborate within an Internet portal have been assessed by a questionnaire. The portal is meant to serve the genetic evaluation, the veterinary herd health management and the obligation to record treatments; it should be at disposal for all users in form of a central database. For the survey, questionnaires were sent to 784 veterinarians (mixed and livestock practices) in Switzerland. Amongst them, 217 (27.7 %) questionnaires could be evaluated. 125 veterinarians already offer a herd health management service and 147 veterinarians are inclined to collaborate in a central registration of animal health data. In this context, they are interested in an efficient veterinary herd health management program, which will allow direct exchange of data with farmers via an Internet portal. However, they fear a lack of interest of their customers and express some concern regarding data protection. The portal providers must therefore consider the needs of all potential users in order to succeed in this project. At this condition, the veterinarians are prepared to spread herd health management amongst the breeders by means of the animal health portal.
von Tavel
L
L
Swissgenetics, Zollikofen. lvt@swissgenetics.ch
Buri
S
S
Witschi
U
U
Kirchhofer
M
M
D000827:Animal Welfare / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000818:Animals; D003625:Data Collection; D016208:Databases, Factual; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013557:Switzerland; D018634:Veterinarians / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014730:Veterinary Medicine / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*