Thesis
Modeling the spread of antibiotic resistance in a veterinary teaching hospital
Washington State University
Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
2013
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/103158
Abstract
Veterinary nosocomial infections caused by multi-drug resistant bacteria are a major cause of concern as they increase the cost and length of treatment. In this study, an individual-based model was developed that incorporates movement of canine patients in ten places in the veterinary teaching hospital at Washington State University and the resulting interactions between these places (referred to as transmission points), patients and healthcare workers. The transmission of pathogens due to these interactions and subsequent decolonization is simulated. The parameters for running model simulations were obtained from hospital records, communications with hospital staff and related literature. The model predicts that at the baseline values of parameters, places like the housing wards, the diagnostics room and intensive care unit have significantly higher proportions of visiting patients colonized with both resistant and non-resistant strain of bacteria, as compared to healthcare workers and places like the lobby and surgery. Multiple regression analysis of results from variations of the parameters further show that decreasing the length of patient stay in the hospital (p-value < 0.0001), decreasing the intervals between decontaminations of healthcare workers and transmission points (p-value < 0.0001) and decreasing the probability of colonization of patients given contact through better healthcare worker hygiene compliance (p-value < 0.0001) significantly reduce the percentage of patients in the hospital carrying resistant pathogens. In case of increasing the decontamination time of health care workers and transmission points, lobby, diagnostics room and exam rooms show a significantly larger corresponding increase in proportion of visiting patients colonized as compared to the intensive care unit and housing wards, suggesting frequent cleaning of places of short but more frequent patient visits would be a good practice to reduce the incidences resistant strain colonization.
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Details
- Title
- Modeling the spread of antibiotic resistance in a veterinary teaching hospital
- Creators
- Neeraj Suthar
- Contributors
- Margaret A. Davis (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Veterinary Medicine, College of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525054601842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis