Angus’s superior sniffer is only half the story
Did you see all the news stories last week on Global and the CBC about Angus the C difficile (Cdiff) sniffing dog? Markus Zurberg, Angus’s owner who also happens to be a nurse at VGH, says Angus’s superior sniffer is only half the story. “This pilot is really the result of collaboration and innovation at all levels and disciplines across VCH.”
Markus has worked at VGH since 2001 and is currently a Clinical Quality & Patient Safety Coordinator. He has always had a passion for quality and patient safety, but he never imagined he’d be the spark for an innovative pilot like Angus the Cdiff sniffing dog.
It started with an email
It all started back in 2012 with an email from his colleague and epidemiologist Leslie Forrester. She sent the team a study from the British Journal of Medicine about a Beagle that had been successfully trained to sniff out Cdiff in stool samples and on patients at two Dutch hospitals.
Markus didn’t think about the study again until a couple years later when his wife Teresa contracted Cdiff from an open wound on her leg. After Teresa spent a week in hospital and lost 20 pounds in the battle, they both started to wonder what they could do to prevent this bacteria from affecting others.
Teresa and Markus share a love of dogs
In fact, Teresa is an expert at training working dogs to sniff out explosives and narcotics. Last summer when they adopted a new puppy Angus the Springer Spaniel, Markus asked Teresa if she thought she could train him to detect Cdiff in hospitals. And she said yes. Now all Markus had to do was figure out how to put Angus to work.
Markus pitched the idea to his director
“If I had to write a business case to bring Angus on board, the pilot might never have never happened.” So he did the next best thing. He put together a five-minute elevator speech and pitched his idea to his director Linda Dempster and she bit. Linda was so excited about the opportunity that she pulled together a team including herself and Markus as well as Liz Bryce, the Regional Medical Director, Infection Control; Diane Roscoe, Regional Division Head Lab-Microbiology; Jacqueline Per, Clinical Quality & Patient Safety Director and other leaders across VGH. “This pilot would not have been possible without Linda and the rest of the team’s support, ” said Markus.
Some of the members of the Angus pilot team including (from left to right_ Markus Zurberg, Clinical Quality & Patient Safety Coordinator ACS; Liz Bryce, Regional Medical Director, Infection Control/Medical Microbiolog, Laboratory – Infection Control; Jacqueline Per, Clinical Quality & Patient Safety Director, Vancouver, Quality & Patient Safety; Diane Roscoe, Regional Division Head, Laboratory – Microbiology.
The team was on a tight timeline
Angus needed to be trained while he was still young. So with the guidance of Liz and Diane the team quickly developed a strategy that could be executed soon and work for VGH. They presented their strategy to VGH’s leadership team who approved it on the spot. Angus has only been in training for a few weeks, but he shows a great deal of promise both in sniffing out Cdiff and in winning the hearts of those he meets.
Your ideas make a difference
When we asked Markus what he learned from the experience of getting this project off the ground from the frontline he said, “if you have ideas that you think could be beneficial to your team, tell your manager or director about them.” You never know, your idea might just be the one that makes a difference.
Cdiff and VCH’s Quality and Patient Safety team
Angus is part of a number of initiatives The Quality and Patient Safety team has undertaken to prevent the spread of Cdiff including environmental decluttering, antimicrobial stewardship and improved isolation procedures. As a result of these initiatives and the dedication of staff across VCH, we’ve reduced the rate of hospital acquired Cdiff from 9.7 per 10,000 patient days in 2009/10 to 5.8 per 10,000 patient days in 2013/14. Visit their pages on VCH-Connect to learn more.
More about Angus
Find out how Angus will join in the battle against Cdiff at VGH. Read his story on VCH.ca and Follow him on Facebook.
Read more stories here on VCH news:
Read the BMJ study