Video Observation of Infection Control Practices in Veterinary Clinics and a Petting Zoo, with Emphasis on Hand Hygiene and Interventions to Improve Hand Hygiene Compliance
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This thesis is an investigation of the use of various infection control practices, including hand hygiene, in companion animal veterinary clinics and a public petting zoo.\n\nVideo observation of petting zoo visitors found overall hand hygiene compliance was 58% (340/583). Improved signage with offering hand sanitizer (odds ratio (OR) 3.38, p<0.001) and verbal hand hygiene reminders (OR 1.73, p=0.037) had a significant positive association with compliance.\n\nVideo observation of preoperative preparation practices in ten veterinary clinics found contact times with preparatory solutions were often shorter than recommended: 10-462s for patients and 7-529s for surgeons using soap and water. Practices that did not conform to guidelines available in major companion animal surgical textbooks were commonly observed.\n\nA survey of veterinary staff found that over 80% of respondents ranked hand hygiene as of high importance in all clinical situations queried. The most frequently reported reason for not performing hand hygiene was forgetting to do so (40%, 141/353).\n\nVideo observation of various infection control practices in 47 veterinary clinics found that poor sharps handling practices were common, yet only one needlestick injury was observed. Exam tables were cleaned following 76% (2015/2646) of appointments, and contact time with spray used to do so ranged from 0-4611s (mean 39s, median 9s). Appropriate personal protective clothing was worn for 72% (3518/4903) of staff-animal contacts. \n\nVideo observation of hand hygiene practices in 38 veterinary clinics found overall hand hygiene compliance was 14% (1473/10894). Soap and water was used for 87% (1182/1353) of observed hand hygiene attempts with a mean contact time of 4s (median 2s, range 1-49s). A hand hygiene poster campaign had no significant effect on compliance.\n\nThere is clearly room for improvement with regard to many frequently used infection control measures in veterinary clinics in Ontario. Use of active interventions to improve practices such as hand hygiene should be investigated in clinics, as such measures have been effective in other settings. The video monitoring system used in this research may be a useful tool for conducting these and similar studies in the future. A better infection control culture needs to be established in veterinary medicine.\n\n\nAccompanying data files are located at: http://hdl.handle.net/10864/10445
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".