Reducing blood culture contamination rates: A systematic approach to improving quality of care.

Link to article at PubMed

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Reducing blood culture contamination rates: A systematic approach to improving quality of care.

Am J Infect Control. 2013 Jun 5;

Authors: Hopkins K, Huynh S, McNary C, Walker A, Nixon R, Craighead JE

Abstract
Contaminated blood cultures can have a deleterious effect on patient care; they may lead to longer hospital stays, unnecessary antibiotic therapy, needless removal of central lines, and redundant laboratory testing. A multidisciplinary quality improvement team from a western US health care system used an evidence-based process to define a system for obtaining blood culture specimens that subsequently decreased contamination rates from 3.7% to 1.7% with an estimated savings close to 2 million dollars in 2 years.

PMID: 23747025 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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