The Small Animal Veterinary Surveillance Network (SAVSNET) is an initiative from the British Small Animal Veterinary Association and the University of Liverpool to collect and analyse companion animal data. SAVSNET collects pets health data in real time from diagnostic laboratories and veterinary consultations across the UK (from ~500 veterinary premises). Given that consultation notes are presented as free-text, we have been working with SAVSNET to develop text mining methods focusing on two goals:

• Extraction of key symptoms and complaints along with additional context (e.g. diagnosis and medications/treatments); and
• Automatic coding of consultation notes with standard veterinary terminologies like VetSCT (the veterinary extension for SNOMED CT) and VeNom.

The project is funded by BBSRC BRC fund.