Health Information Coordinator Reports
(As submitted to the PWDCA Board)

HEALTH INFORMATION COORDINATOR

I have identified several tasks to accomplish in my first six months. The board is welcome to suggest other things, too, and I will report back on feasibility of those. In most items below, I have a question for the board – your answers will help me function more efficiently.

1. Making health committee reports to the board more accessible to the membership.
   1. Rationale. The reports are submitted now to the board on a time frame that I don’t have a clue about. The reports are embedded in the board’s meeting minutes.
   2. Placing the reports with a link to the respective health committee web page will make them more easily findable.
   3. I have contacted Jean Hassebroek about the feasibility of doing this and we will continue to work on the options after the specialty is over.
   4. Does the board have a specific time frame for when such reports are due?
2. Facilitating placement of health related Courier articles, or at least an index of these, onto the web site.
   1. Rationale. Increase accessibility of valuable health information and research study outcomes from the Courier for anyone viewing the PWDCA web site.
   2. Actual articles would be more valuable than an index.
   3. I asked Terry C, the Courier editor, about doing this. She knew that Shelly Jakubowski in Nebraska was doing something on this. Shelly and I have exchanged several emails. She has scanned complete Couriers of the last 10 years. She places the issue, title, and author into a database. She has also developed a way to search that index.
   4. I will continue to interact with Shelly. She recently had a litter so won’t have much time until later in the fall.
   5. The board will need to determine if it is legally acceptable to post previous Courier health articles on the web site. Shelly reminded me that the Courier is a privilege of PWDCA membership, and that the board may therefore choose to restrict access of Courier articles to members only.
      1. My view of restricting valuable health information only to members is that such an approach is exclusive. Furthermore, any non-member who knows a member could borrow or acquire whole stacks of years and years of the Courier from a member or at auction. Don’t we want to provide educational materials to anyone interested in the breed? Don’t we want researchers and veterinarians in practice to have first hand access to PWD health information in an accessible location?
      2. Generally, I believe the accepted procedure for reproducing articles already published is to acknowledge location of first publication and with author and editor permission.
         1. If the board found such an approach acceptable, I would also suggest that for past articles, the current editor be allowed to say yes and that I would be responsible for contacting authors for their permission.
         2. For future articles, the board could establish a one sentence policy that an author submitting an article for Courier publication gives permission for that article to also be published on the PWDCA web site.
3. Contact with 10 health committees. On 8/15 I wrote each committee chair to ask their views about having links on their web page to their board report, about an index to Courier health articles, and whether or not they were interested in the option to have their committee’s data electronically stored in a confidential system. To date I have heard back only from the eye and the GI committee. Each had helpful comments and questions. I will make another effort later in the fall with the other committees once the board gives me direction about item #2 above.
4. Educational material on subjects not covered by health committees. I will review more thoroughly the 2005 health survey results later in the fall. The temperament/behavior subject is being very extensively covered in the Courier series on UnderstandingOur Dogs. Other topics that may need a look are hypothyroidism, chronic ear infections, and vaccination practices. A breeder’s group likely would be best qualified to take on reproductive and puppy problems.
5. Increase awareness of the need for health updates on dogs in at least Dr. Oberbauer’s research project at UCDavis.
   1. Since Beardies are involved in this project, I know firsthand that Dr. Oberbauer needs regular updates on a dog’s health status (unchanged, new problems, newly diagnosed Addison’s).
   2. I have no clue what the Georgie project does with respect to updating health records, but from reading the summary reports, I would think it vital that that project also know if a dog has developed Addison’s disease. There is no mention of the need to update health status on either the Georgie project web site or on the Addison’s committee PWDCA web page.
   3. Rationale for updating. Identification of genetic markers for Addison’s disease depends on accurately knowing whether a dog has Addison’s or not. The average age of onset is 4-6 years. Owners have submitted DNA samples on their PWD at different ages and new diagnoses of health problems can occur after that time. Even one dog with an incorrect diagnosis (e.g., normal rather than Addisonian) can distort genetic research results.
   4. I contacted both Erin Mayfield and the Addison’s chair to ask how they approach notifying the membership of the need for health updates, but haven’t yet heard back from them.
6. Next report – for November board meeting.