If you ask a swine veterinarian what the most annoying part of his or her job is currently, they will most likely say the sea of paperwork they are often swimming in around custom-made vaccines for nonadjacent herds, says Dr. Keith Wilson, Newport Laboratories, Inc. senior professional services veterinarian.

“When we have surveyed our veterinarian clients over the last three to five years on the issues they face, the nonadjacent paperwork is always one that comes up,” Wilson says. “The paperwork involved slows down the process of getting custom-made vaccines to the herds that need them.”

That’s why last month Newport Laboratories launched a new solution for veterinarians that streamlines the nonadjacent-herd approval process and ongoing isolate management, all from a mobile phone or computer. HerdPoint, which is exclusively available to Newport Laboratories customers, brings the process online and removes the need to sign and send documentation through the mail.

Wilson says while custom-made vaccines aren’t technically described as prescription vaccines, they do need to be coordinated or administered by the herd veterinarian. If the veterinarian chooses to do a custom-made vaccine, he or she needs to isolate the pathogen causing the problem to place the order for that herd of origin.

“As pigs move from site to site, we know diseases move with them,” Wilson says. “So, if we’re moving pigs to a different location, or even pigs within a flow to a finishing barn, and we are confident that same disease is there, the veterinarian can submit paperwork to the USDA that allows them to use that custom-made vaccine in a nonadjacent herd.”

Wilson says it is that process that has caused headaches for many veterinarians over the years.

Now through HerdPoint, veterinarians can view and manage all of their clients’ existing and past isolates from Newport Laboratories, giving them greater visibility into isolate status and expiration dates, including those from adjacent and nonadjacent herds.

This also makes it easier for veterinarians to provide real-time insights and recommendations to their clients on herd-health solutions.

According to Wilson, Newport’s veterinary clinic clients were eager to jump on board with HerdPoint.

“It took care of a lot of things they were doing on their end, spreadsheets of watching where isolates were and where the vaccines were going, and it put it into one place,” Wilson says.

Wilson says for veterinarians who are just starting to use more custom-made vaccines, and are not as familiar with the process, it has also simplified the education process.

It’s also been a time saver. Wilson estimates from start to finish, HerdPoint saves veterinarians anywhere from two to four hours on the nonadjacent herd approval process.

Wilson relates the process to when veterinary feed directives came into effect as veterinarians were required to write all paperwork out and then get it to the feed mill.

“That was a hassle, but once it went all online, it made that whole process easier,” Wilson says. “It’s the same concept behind this. We can streamline the nonadjacent approval process and make it less cumbersome.”