New in ZIMS: Rescue Accessions Have a New Home

The new rescue accessioning workflow has been designed from the ground up with rescue and rehabilitation work in mind. It’s mobile-friendly, so staff can log records in the field without needing to be at a desktop, and it removes data fields that were rarely used in favour of ones that reflect how rescue work actually happens.

For rescue facilities, the Event type defaults to “Rescued”, while the Rescue location defaults to the country of the logged in institution, further saving time when adding data to ZIMS. Additionally, several data entry fields have been tailor made to support wildlife rescue work, such as:

• Latitude and longitude can be recorded in a single field, with easy copy/paste functionality from Google Maps.
• A new field has been added for “reasons for admission,” to support future reporting and analysis.
• An “age range estimate” has been added, useful for when birth information is unknown.
• Parents default to Wild but can be added if known.
• Add the new animal directly onto an animal list, making it easy to find animals or keep them grouped together. (For example, when multiple animals come in from the same rescue event and you want to keep them grouped for monitoring illness, etc).
• Egg ID field available when recording an egg or group of eggs.

After completing a rescue accession, you can now choose “Save and add data” to jump directly to data entry with your newly accessioned animal in focus. This saves time when adding clinical notes, weights and identifiers. And there is a “Back to accessions” navigation option that appears when entering data after creating an accession, making it easier to return to your workflow. Additionally, a new screen displays all accessions.