Infection control and hospital epidemiology : the official journal of the Society of Hospital Epidemiologists of America
The most recent articles from:
Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol
-
Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol · Aug 2014
Cost analysis of strategies to reduce blood culture contamination in the emergency department: sterile collection kits and phlebotomy teams.
Blood culture collection practices that reduce contamination, such as sterile blood culture collection kits and phlebotomy teams, increase up-front costs for collecting cultures but may lead to net savings by eliminating downstream costs associated with contamination. The study objective was to compare overall hospital costs associated with 3 collection strategies: usual care, sterile kits, and phlebotomy teams. ⋯ EDs with high blood culture contamination rates should strongly consider evidence-based strategies to reduce contamination. In addition to improving quality, implementing a sterile collection kit or phlebotomy team strategy is likely to result in net cost savings.