La Jolla Institute ensures timely and accurate reporting with an appreciated 75% reduction in ordering time

Challenge

The level of administrative burden that falls on many research facilities can be significant. Consider lab animal research facilities that are faced with the infinite details of animal procurement and care, facility staffing, billing, and compliance. All too often, older out-of-date technology software and systems make vivarium management and compliance a time-consuming, frequently frustrating task. This was the situation at La Jolla Institute for Immunology, a non-profit research organization, and home to three research centers that develop new treatments and vaccines for autoimmune conditions, cancer, and infectious disease.

The team at La Jolla struggled with their research administration software system. It was an older, inefficient system that took too long to load and was not updated regularly, causing frustration, inefficiency, and delays. Lisa Young, Senior Compliance Administrator, recalls, “The interface never worked well for anyone. It was incredibly slow; and for the researchers it was a constant headache.”

On the animal facility management side, the system was cranky as well and again, not updated consistently. “When a new version was announced, we thought about upgrading, but we’d heard so many nightmare stories about it we knew it was time to look for something better,” says Nicola Eaton, Administrative Supervisor in the Department of Lab Animal Care.

La Jolla embarked on a long search for a modern solution to help them manage their protocols and animal facility operations.

Solution

“We reviewed quite a few programs and did a ton of demos and calls,” says Nicola, adding “I wanted a software solution that was going to work. I didn’t want to be in the same boat as before.” They narrowed it down to two options. The team leaned toward choosing Cayuse, and then a colleague at another local Institute spoke highly of Animal Oversight, and that clinched the deal. Nicola says, “References go a long way in this business, so we decided to go with Cayuse Animal Oversight and Resource Management solutions.”

Cayuse wasn’t entirely new to La Jolla, because they’d been using Cayuse Proposals. The Director of Sponsored Research, Brandon Fabritzky, is quite happy with the efficiency Proposals (S2S) provides: “Cayuse Proposals allows us to make the most of previously vetted, successfully submitted proposals and their associated data.”

With an internal vote of confidence for Cayuse along with positive external peer references, ultimately, La Jolla purchased six integrated apps: Animal Oversight, Vivarium Operations (Procurement, Inventory, Billing, and Services), and Vet Care.

Results

The team at La Jolla can now manage their animal protocol and facility management program with an intuitive and scalable software that balances resources, manages protocols, streamlines workflows, and meets all the necessary compliance mandates.

Lisa and Nicola have discovered a number of key benefits from Cayuse’s integrated solutions including:

Significant Time Savings

Nicola has experienced a tremendous change in animal ordering. “It is so much better! The previous system didn’t have an inventory catalog to choose from.” Nicola was still getting paper form orders from researchers that she had to enter individually in the system. She adds, “Now, with Cayuse Animal Procurement, the animal ordering process is so easy! I’ve literally saved days. In the past it would take me most of the day placing animal orders. Now, it takes less than an hour.”

Intuitive and Easy to Use

“The product works so smoothly, that the researchers save time completing protocols and the interface is easy and intuitive, so there’s not much training needed,” Lisa says. She also appreciates the flexibility of updating protocols: “Our old system had very limited ability to make changes to protocols, but with Cayuse Animal Oversight, it’s much easier.” Nicola agrees, “Scanning is a lot easier to use and manipulate. When errors occur I can easily fix them, whereas in the old system we’d have to go rescan a whole room if there was a mistake.”

Data and Reporting Accuracy

The ability for the admin to add all procedures and substances to the animal oversight dictionary list ensures data and reporting accuracy. Lisa says, “You do have the benefit of making sure data is entered correctly compared to leaving that up to the researchers.”

Stellar Customer Support

Cayuse is known for its ease of implementation and superior customer support and both Lisa and Nicola agree on that point. Lisa adds, “I found the implementation process really good and the customer support is always very good and very responsive, they fix most issues right away.”

Overall, La Jolla Institute is reaping the benefits of switching to Cayuse and the team is looking at modernizing other areas of their research lifecycle, potentially automating their IRB processes with Cayuse Human Ethics. Cayuse is very happy to support La Jolla’s research and its mission to achieve a “life without disease.”