Download or read book Decreasing Blood Culture Contamination Rate written by Amber Lindsey and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blood cultures are the gold standard for the diagnosis of bacteremia. Blood culture testing is routinely used to diagnose infections in patients within the acute care hospital setting. The problem faced with this diagnostic test is the increase in nonpathogenic flora, which is considered contaminated flora. Contaminated blood cultures adversely impact health care and medical expenditure. False-positive blood cultures lead to unnecessary use of antibiotics, extended length of stay in the hospital and additional microbiological studies. Contaminated cultures are costly to all parties involved. The aim of this project is to decrease blood culture contamination in a Southwest Community Hospital. This paper discusses the educational intervention in an emergency department to decrease the amount of false-positive blood cultures. The implementation of the multi-step intervention was to first educate the staff on the proper collection technique, monitor the individual collectors on a monthly basis and provide one-on-one feedback on their individual contamination rate. The goal of the project was to decrease collector contamination rate below the national standard of a 3% contamination rate. The individual collectors were acknowledge for zero contaminations by their manager and counseled if exceeded the national standard. Evidence-based research studies have proven adequate monitoring and oversight contributes to significant and ongoing reductions in blood culture contamination (Denno, 2013).