Tips: Blood Culture collection.

The early detection and aggressive management of sepsis is vital in reducing morbidity and mortality, and the gold standard in detecting bacteraemia in our patients is the blood culture. Contamination of blood culture specimens or poor technique may lead to delay in optimum clinical decisions and management with inappropriate or unnecessary antibiotics. Not to mention wasted expenses. Blood culture bottles contain a soup of nutrients that feed a wide range of bacteria/fungi. Some bottles (including the BD BACTEC Plus media) also contain a resin to neutralise any antibiotics present in the patient’s blood in order to promote organism growth. When taking blood cultures aseptic non-touch technique should be followed. Emphasis should be placed on following your hospital blood culture collection policy without taking shortcuts. Decontamination: The most common cause of false positive results occurs due to contamination from the patient’s own skin at the collection site. Solutions that can be used for site decontamination include: greater than 0.5% alcohol chlorhexidine (drying time 60 seconds) 70% isopropyl alcohol (drying time 0 seconds) providone iodine (drying time 2 minutes) Always allow enough time for antiseptic solution to dry before taking cultures. It is also important to thoroughly clean the tops and necks of culture bottles prior to collection. There are also commercially available one-step applicators containing combinations such as chlorhexidine gluconate and is...
Source: impactEDnurse - Category: Nurses Authors: Tags: tips and tricks Source Type: blogs