ROEB-SceneDoc

The notebook is a fundamental component of regulatory officer’s work.  Notes are taken to provide a record of the inspector’s actions and observations.  The notes may be subsequently used for purposes, such as to refresh the author’s memory, to establish a history of compliance, to defend Health Canada’s decisions in legal proceedings, to respond to ATIP requests.

ROEB inspectors are still heavily reliant on paper for note taking.  Notes are recorded by hand in a bound notebook with numbered pages, in order to maintain its integrity and can be submitted as evidence during litigation. Typical inspection results can be anywhere from 5 to 15 pages of hand written notes.  Because these hand written notes are recorded in a bound notebook, inspectors must then spend much time after inspections in order to organize the inspection notes and transcribe the information (notes and diagrams) into the inspection report.  As well, notes written in a notebook are difficult to search, organize and share, which is often necessary during inspection work or for Access to Information (ATI) requests.

While some ROEB programs (mainly HPC, Cannabis) have tried using Microsoft OneNote for electronic notetaking, they have found that OneNote is not meeting their needs and most inspectors in those programs are still taking hand written notes.  While OneNote is available on inspector tablets and is a good for organizing general meeting notes, it is not designed as a regulatory Note taking application.

The main issues with OneNote include the following:

• It is too cumbersome to use in the field.  It is often not operationally feasible to use a tablet for note taking in the field, due to environmental constraints such as tight spaces or constantly having to be mobile to move around the site; and holding tablets for extended periods of time can cause strain.
• It does not adequately track changes made to notes, as necessary to support prosecutions.  While it highlights where changes were made in a file, it does not clearly show what those changes were.  This is a basic requirement to support the authenticity of inspector notes.
• It does not have an efficient storage process.  While files auto-save in the background, inspectors are not easily able to extract each individual file from an inspection and save into a repository for future reference.  As well, it does not allow inspectors to access/search each other’s notes, as is often necessary for compliance decisions and to respond to ATIP requests.    

Due to the drawbacks with current available options, Health Canada inspectors still rely almost exclusively on pen and paper documentation to record their activities.

POD-TBI is currently experimenting with “SceneDoc” application, a Digital Notebook solution created and designed with regulatory officers and their needs in mind.  This mobile software fills many of the gaps that currently exist for ROEB C&E inspectors in the field, including their ability to effectively and efficiently collect, track, and store information from an inspection using smartphone or tablet.  The SceneDoc – Digital Notebook would also provide a solution for extracting digital content, such as pictures, video and other multimedia from smartphones.

Phase II

• If results of experimentation with SceneDoc are positive, POD-TBI will initiate an initial formal pilot of the digital notebook solution in 20/21 with Cannabis or HPC-CV.
• Work instructions and training material for pilot participants will be created, as necessary.
• Following a successful initial pilot, POD-TBI will then initiate a second pilot of the digital notebook solution in 21/22 with another program.
• Following two successful pilots, POD-TBI will propose an implementation plan for deploying the digital notebook solution to the other ROEB programs.  Any post pilot implementation expansion of SceneDoc application, however, would be a separate project, and outside the scope of the etoolkit project.