title: Reducing blood culture contamination rates: a systematic approach to improving quality of care.
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, Poudre Valley Hospital, University of Colorado Health North, Fort Collins, CO. Electronic address: kathie.hopkins@uchealth.org.
authors.forename: Kathie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hopkins
authors.forename: Sheila
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Huynh
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: McNary
authors.forename: Ashley
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Walker
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nixon
authors.forename: Janet E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Craighead
mesh_terms: D001769:Blood / Q000382:microbiology*; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006801:Humans; D018805:Sepsis / Q000175:diagnosis*; D013048:Specimen Handling / Q000379:methods*; D014481:United States
keywords: Blood culture; Contamination; Performance improvement