Identification of the main contributors to blood culture contamination at a tertiary care academic medical center

Blood culture contamination poses an issue to all hospital systems worldwide because of the associated costs of extended length of stays, unnecessary antibiotic therapy, and additional laboratory testing that are preventable with proper handling and collection techniques. In our study, multiple unit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Infection prevention in practice 2022-09, Vol.4 (3), p.100219-100219, Article 100219
Main Authors: Sacchetti, Brianna, Travis, Justin, Steed, Lisa L., Webb, Ginny
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Blood culture
Contamination
Nursing
Original
Phlebotomy
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Summary:Blood culture contamination poses an issue to all hospital systems worldwide because of the associated costs of extended length of stays, unnecessary antibiotic therapy, and additional laboratory testing that are preventable with proper handling and collection techniques. In our study, multiple units, staff, and collection methods were compared to determine the primary culprits of contamination from a tertiary care academic medical center, which includes a pediatric hospital and both adult and pediatric emergency departments. Over 33 months, 2,083 out of 88,322 total blood cultures collected were contaminated, with an overall contamination rate of 2.4%. A moderate positive correlation was found between the monthly total number of cultures and monthly contamination rate (r = 0.411 P < .01). The most notable factors associated with contamination were found to be phlebotomy teams (2.7%) (P < .01), peripheral draws (2.3%) (P
ISSN:2590-0889
2590-0889
DOI:10.1016/j.infpip.2022.100219