SHIC Funds Project to Implement ISU-VDL Disease Diagnostic Codes at OH-VDL

One of the Swine Health Information Center’s first successes was to align veterinary diagnostic labs in pig-dense areas to be able to share information and, consequently, be better able to track swine disease information. The resulting SHIC-funded Swine Disease Reporting System provides US pork industry stakeholders with disease-surveillance information generated from veterinary diagnostic laboratory data. Additionally, the disease diagnosis (Dx) code system developed at the Iowa State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory captures pathologist-confirmed tissue disease diagnoses using a standardized coding framework. With SHIC funding, a project to transfer and implement the ISU-VDL Dx code system at the Ohio Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, now known as the Ohio Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, was successful. This represents the next step in VDL sharing and establishes prospective reporting of confirmed tissue disease diagnoses into the SDRS.

The Dx code sharing project was led by Drs. Giovani Trevisan and Daniel Linhares with their colleagues at the ISU College of Veterinary Medicine. The ISU-VDL structured framework capable of being expanded to report confirmed tissue disease diagnoses for over 40 pathogens affecting the US swine industry providing a benefit to producers seeking information on the pathogens affecting their herds and productivity was used.

Read the full report of SHIC project 25-068 here.

The OH-VDL became the first veterinary diagnostic laboratory outside ISU-VDL to adopt the Dx code framework and report confirmed tissue diagnoses in SDRS. Consequently, the project established the first multi-laboratory database of standardized confirmed tissue diagnoses and demonstrated that diagnostician-assigned disease diagnoses can be successfully shared and aggregated across institutions. These developments expand geographic coverage, improve the representation of surveillance data, and provide a scalable model for future participation by additional veterinary diagnostic laboratories.

The objective for the project included 1) Transfer the current ISU VDL disease diagnosis Dx code matrix to OH-VDL, 2) Implement the disease diagnosis system at OH-VDL, and 3) Prospectively report confirmed tissue disease diagnosis from OH-VDL to SDRS.

The project included transferring the Dx code matrix, implementing Dx code capture within the OH-VDL laboratory information management system (LIMS), developing an automated application programming interface (API) for Dx code collection and reporting to SDRS, collation with ISU VDL data, and reporting in the SDRS monthly PDF reporting.

Diagnoses from both the ISU-VDL and OH-VDL provide a valuable surveillance tool, allowing the capture of trends in confirmed disease occurrence, beyond pathogen detection, since they rely on the final interpretation of clinical history, pathology findings, and laboratory testing results by a diagnostician.

The ISU-VDL developed Dx code system standardizes the recording of confirmed tissue diagnoses. The coding framework captures the affected system, insult type, lesion, and disease process or etiology. This allows diagnostician conclusions to be stored as structured data and facilitates case retrieval, disease monitoring, and epidemiological analyses (Derscheid et al., 2021). Aggregated Dx code data have subsequently been used to support disease surveillance dashboards and reporting through SDRS (Trevisan et al., 2021).

OH-VDL cases originated mostly from Ohio but also from other states like West Virginia, expanding the geographic coverage of tissue-disease surveillance. In addition, project outcomes contributed to the peer-reviewed publication “Macroepidemiologic assessment of swine disease co-occurrences in the United States of America” (Cezar et al., 2026), which described the successful transfer of the Dx code methodology and demonstrated the feasibility of integrating confirmed tissue diagnoses across institutions.

Understanding disease occurrence by region, production type, and age category provides valuable information to support animal health decision-making and disease control efforts. The resulting infrastructure provides a scalable foundation for participation of additional laboratories and supports broader monitoring of endemic swine diseases using standardized, pathologist-confirmed diagnoses.

The Swine Health Information Center, launched in 2015 with Pork Checkoff funding, protects and enhances the health of the US swine herd by minimizing the impact of emerging disease threats through preparedness, coordinated communications, global disease monitoring, analysis of swine health data, and targeted research investments. As a conduit of information and research, SHIC encourages sharing of its publications and research. Forward, reprint, and quote SHIC material freely. For more information, visit https://www.swinehealth.org or contact Dr. Lisa Becton at [email protected]