Chapter 4: Health Monitoring & Veterinary Records

Chapter overview: Digital health records linked to RFID identity, IoT-driven early detection, disease prevention with vaccination schedules, antimicrobial-resistance reporting, animal welfare assessment, and veterinary system integration via HL7 FHIR R5 with SNOMED CT, LOINC, and ATC-vet code systems.

4.1 Digital health records — birth to slaughter

The animal record is the spine of every downstream decision: vet treatment, abattoir grading, withdrawal-period enforcement, regulator notification. WIA-AGRI-009 binds it to the ISO 11784/11785 RFID identifier so the same record is reachable whether the reader is a handheld in a race or a Snowflake query in a head office.

Record type	Captured fields	Frequency
Vaccinations	Vaccine LOINC, ATC-vet code, batch, route, dose, withdrawal days	Annual or per protocol
Treatments	SNOMED CT diagnosis, drug, dose, duration, withdrawal	As needed
Checkups	Weight, body condition score (1-5), rumen temp, gait score	Monthly to quarterly
Reproduction	Heat detection (oestrus), AI/natural breeding, pregnancy diagnosis	Per cycle
Calving / kidding / lambing	Ease score, neonate weight, colostrum intake	Per birth
Welfare assessment	Five Domains scores, RSPCA welfare metrics	Quarterly

4.2 IoT health sensors

4.2.1 Continuous body temperature

Cattle normal range 38.0–39.0 °C; sustained > 39.5 °C is a fever flag. Three sensor classes:

Ear-tag thermistor — < ±0.2 °C, BLE 5.4 ↔ farm gateway, 24-month coin cell.
Rumen bolus (e.g., Allflex SmartBolus, smaXtec) — most accurate core temperature, CoAP + OSCORE uplink, 5-year battery.
IR ear scanner — race-side, ±0.3 °C, no animal hardware needed.

4.2.2 Activity, gait, and rumination

3-axis IMU on the collar feeds an on-device classifier (TinyML / TFLite Micro). Output labels — resting / grazing / ruminating / walking / oestrus / lameness — uplink as a one-byte label rather than raw IMU. Rumination minutes/day < 400 is an early disease warning regardless of cause.

4.3 Vaccination protocols

Disease	Notifiable	Korea protocol	Withdrawal
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD)	OIE notifiable	Twice yearly compulsory (MAFRA)	Meat 21 d, milk 0 d
Brucellosis	OIE notifiable	Annual serology + RB51 calf vaccination	Variable — see ATC-vet
Anthrax	OIE notifiable	Endemic-zone annual vaccination	Meat 21 d
Black-leg / clostridial	—	Calves 4–6 mo	Meat 21 d
BRD respiratory complex	—	Pre-feedlot 30 d	Per product
Mastitis (dairy)	—	Dry-off intramammary	Milk 96 h after first calving

4.4 Veterinary system integration (HL7 FHIR R5 — animal-as-Patient)

Veterinary data exchange uses an HL7 FHIR R5 profile that maps Animal → Patient, with extension fields for species and identifier system. Every immunisation carries LOINC, SNOMED CT, and ATC-vet codes so cross-border consumers (USDA APHIS, EU TRACES NT) can decode without local mapping tables.

{
  "resourceType":"Immunization",
  "patient":{"reference":"Patient/KOR-01-123456789"},
  "vaccineCode":{"coding":[
    {"system":"http://loinc.org","code":"30958-7",
     "display":"Foot and mouth disease vaccine"},
    {"system":"http://www.whocc.no/atcvet","code":"QI02AA01"},
    {"system":"http://snomed.info/sct","code":"419218000"}
  ]},
  "occurrenceDateTime":"2026-04-25T10:00:00+09:00",
  "primarySource":true,
  "performer":[{"actor":{"display":"이수의 KVMA-2026-0177"}}],
  "doseQuantity":{"value":2.0,"unit":"mL","system":"http://unitsofmeasure.org","code":"mL"},
  "lotNumber":"FMD-2026-Q1-A33",
  "manufacturer":{"display":"Merial"},
  "extension":[{"url":"https://wia.com/ext/withdrawal-meat-days","valueInteger":21},
               {"url":"https://wia.com/ext/withdrawal-milk-days","valueInteger":0}]
}

4.5 Antimicrobial use and resistance reporting

OECD & OIE require quantitative antimicrobial-use (AMU) reporting at species level. WIA-AGRI-009 emits AMU events as FHIR MedicationAdministration with ATC-vet codes; the platform aggregates to the OIE WAHIS template (mg/kg PCU per year). AMR results from sensitivity testing land as FHIR Observation records keyed to the herd ID.

4.6 Withdrawal-period enforcement

The platform refuses any slaughter or milk-collection event where the latest medication's withdrawal end-date is in the future. This is a compile-time check at ingest, not a downstream warning.

HTTP/1.1 422 Unprocessable Entity
Content-Type: application/problem+json

{
  "type":"https://errors.livestock.wia.com/withdrawal-violation",
  "title":"Slaughter inside withdrawal period",
  "detail":"FMD vaccine 2026-04-25 — meat withdrawal until 2026-05-16",
  "violations":[{"check":"meatWithdrawalDays","required":21,"observed":3}]
}

4.7 Notifiable disease workflow (OIE WOAH WAHIS 2.0)

Field clinical sign or positive lab test triggers a health.alert event.
The platform creates a draft WAHIS notification within 60 minutes.
National Designated Authority (KR: APQA, EU: national CA, US: USDA APHIS) signs the payload.
Submission to WAHIS 2.0 within 24 hours per OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code Chapter 1.1.
WAHIS reference id is appended to the animal record and to the next EPCIS event.

4.8 Welfare scoring (Five Domains framework)

Mellor's Five Domains model (2020 update) is the international welfare reference. The standard records each domain quarterly:

Nutrition — body condition score, hydration, feed access.
Environment — shelter, ventilation, climate stress index.
Health — disease prevalence, mortality, lameness.
Behaviour — natural behaviour expression, social grouping.
Mental state — composite from above four (welfare quality protocol).

4.9 Growth tracking and Average Daily Gain

Walk-over scales with integrated RFID readers capture weight every time the animal walks past, producing a 30+ data-point ADG curve per month with no human handling.

ADG_kg_per_day = (weight_today - weight_lookback_30d) / 30

Targets (Hanwoo): 0.7-0.9 kg/d (growing), 0.9-1.2 kg/d (finishing)
Flag for vet review if ADG < 0.5 kg/d for 14+ days.

Summary

Digital health records linked to ISO 11784 identity make every later decision traceable.
IoT thermistors, rumen boluses, and IMU classifiers turn reactive disease care into proactive triage.
HL7 FHIR R5 + LOINC + SNOMED CT + ATC-vet make veterinary data cross-border-readable.
Withdrawal-period enforcement at API time blocks unsafe slaughter or milk collection.
WAHIS 2.0 notification and Five Domains welfare scoring are first-class workflows.