5 - Efficiency in Semi-Annual IACUC Inspections and Reports with Electronic Process

Background: The IACUC Semi-Annual Inspection process presents many challenges. Paper forms for each area, clipboards, inspector’s poor handwriting, and inconsistency in citing the same findings. It also takes considerable time to prepare and send the preliminary report, get responses from appropriate departments, and prepare the final report.

Program

Description: An electronic process was developed utilizing forms and automation within Smartsheet. The use of a dashboard, electronic checklists, and a computer cart eliminates the historic issues. The IACUC inspector dashboard contains electronic forms that include dropdown selections for common findings. The forms have required fields, instructions for inspectors, and automatically populate portions of the preliminary report for common findings. The dashboard includes team assignment lists to indicate what areas each team are responsible for inspecting and IACUC members can easily see what areas still need inspected based on those that haven’t been checked off. The process was tested by IACUC members with mock inspections. The inspectors provided feedback about functions that did not work well along with a wish list of items for enhancement. This process improvement was completed over four iterations using an AGILE approach where improvements were made with each session with the provided feedback.

Program

Assessment: Implementation was successful. The electronic process was first utilized for our second Semi-Annual IACUC Inspection in September 2022. The inspectors found that the electronic process was quicker than the traditional paper-based method and teams could capture findings and complete inspections in less time. Collecting responses and action plans to the findings was also streamlined and departments found the electronic process more efficient. Unexpected issues identified were rooms not appearing in numerical order, learning curves for inspector use of the program, and underutilization of the dropdown selections. This created unanticipated work on the back end of the process by our IACUC administrator. Post-inspection the forms were updated to correct the numbering problem and IACUC members were given mini-instruction cards and briefed about the use of dropdown selections when at all possible. The electronic process was utilized for our first Semi-Annual Inspection in 2023 and saved our IACUC staff over 46 hours as compared to the old process.

Limitations: The biggest limitation is the additional training necessary to use the electronic process over the paper-based process. The availability of computers and carts is limited and requires inspection teams to schedule the equipment. Biosecurity must be considered when moving carts around the entire facility as well.

Discussion: We found the process is more efficient for the inspectors as well as the IACUC administrators, saving countless hours of labor. This process has been implemented successfully at one other safety assessment site within our company and several other safety assessment and discovery sites have been given a template to build a process that will work for their institution. Iterative testing and feedback are imperative for a successful product for end users.