It was awesome when the Canadian women won ice hockey gold at the winter Olympics in Vancouver earlier this year – or for my World Cup obsessed South American students, the what Olympics? – and OK when the Canadian men won gold, but I still say Vancouver is a dump of a town. Always has been.

A new study reported by the Vancouver Sun found that failed handwashing audits for health-care facilities within the Vancouver Island Health Authority produced "disappointing" and "unacceptable" results, according to the head of patient safety.

Doctors were the worst, with a compliance rate of 18 per cent (same percentage seen in other studies).

The health authority improved over last year's scores of 15 per cent, but, considering the intensive handwashing campaign launched in the face of H1N1 influenza and the increasing number of outbreaks at various facilities, staff members need to do better, according to Dr. Martin Wale, executive medical director of quality and patient safety.

Those ‘please wash hands’ signs at petting zoos (left, exactly as shown) are as effective as the ‘Employees must wash hands’ signs – they don’t work. And it’s not enough for petting zoos to simply put up signs and hope bad things won’t happen. Good luck in court.

Lawyers representing 28 victims of last year's E. coli outbreak at Godstone farm in Surrey are preparing to demand "substantial" damages in a group legal action.

Ninety-three people, mostly young children, were infected with E. coli O157 after visiting the farm.

Some are still ill with kidney damage.

Godstone farm says it cannot comment on the legal action until the release of a report into the outbreak due next week.

Two of the victims who are expected to be named in the legal action are twins Aaron and Todd Mock, who are about to celebrate their third birthday.

Both had kidney failure and spent weeks in hospital with E. coli poisoning after visiting Godstone Farm last September. Aaron is still unwell; he has limited kidney function and has to be given liquids through a feeding tube.

Their lawyer, Jill Greenfield, alleges that Godstone Farm was negligent in the way it handled the outbreak of E. coli O157. She is representing 27 children and one adult who were affected.

A fellow food safety nerd wrote to tell me he spent Sunday at the zoo with his wife and two young children, and was amazed at the various public health practices that do or do not exist when mixing children, animals, and food, all in the same place.

Ironically – or maybe like the Alanis song, more of a coincidence – Sorenne and I were chilling to Special Agent Oso while chowing on some oatmeal and berries and it was the petting zoo episode.

Amy has already written about this episode because, like most children’s television series, a dozen original episodes are produced and then replayed incessantly.

Washed hands before feeding the llama reduces disease transmission from humans to animals; washing hands after feeding the llama reduces disease transmission from animals to humans: diseases go both ways. The kid in this episode got it right, with handwashing before and after.

Useless trivia: Special Agent Oso, the unique stuffed bear, is voiced by Sean Astin, the movie actor known for roles in The Goonies, Rudy, Lord of the Rings, and as the steroid abusing dim-witted brother in 50 First Dates.

The iScrub Lite 1.5, a free app released on the iTunes store last Wednesday, allows medical professionals to enter data on hand hygiene compliance, which has typically been accomplished via old-fashioned clipboards and note cards.

Philip Polgreen, an assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Iowa, where the app was developed, said,

"The long-term goal of our research is to understand hand hygiene behavior and use the feedback to help improve rates. This app can help standardize and streamline how observations are recorded."

According to CNET News, the app enables anyone who cares to monitor hand hygiene to record observational data, e-mail it as an Excel spreadsheet, follow World Health Organization compliance models, and customize data collection to reflect various locations, job roles, and notes.