20 Apr tbpro

Over the last two years UK Farmcare has been working with its technical development team to develop an on-farm app that will work with some of the low-cost android tablets that are now available. We are delighted to report that on-farm testing of ‘TB Pro’ is now reaching its conclusion and we will soon have a ‘beta’ version in the hands of some trusted practice colleagues to test our systems ‘in anger’.

TB Pro links up with TOM via the cloud so that selected tests are shared with the nominated TB tester and all test records noted on screen. TB Pro will cope with split tests and shared tests and with cattle that have lost their tags.

After the test is completed, all records are passed back into TOM where TB testers have further opportunity to review results and prepare test data for submission using any browser and any internet enabled machine. Finally, the whole file is uploaded to SAM and the TB tester, or their AVS, runs their final checks prior to test submission.

We expect teething issues; our team is standing by for tweaks and adjustments, but our aim is to save your admin teams some significant workload in preparation of test lists and to ensure that TB testing staff have flexible and helpful support with their tests. The kit has low hardware cost by making use of mainstream tablets while rewriting all data continuously to an on-board SD card in case of total destruction! There is a monthly fee to cover support and maintenance and a small fee payable per test to pay for the product itself. Once we have processed the initial field feedback, we intend to make the service available for a short period without cost so that practices can decide if it suits them or not. Smaller tests can always be selected free of cost so that users can practice with the technology on tests where a parallel paper system can more

easily be maintained.