You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Simulated interactive management series
Simple measures to reduce the rate of contamination of blood cultures in Accident and Emergency
  1. M Madeo1,
  2. T Jackson2,
  3. C Williams1
  1. 1Department of Infection Control, Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals, Hull, UK
  2. 2Department of Accident and Emergency, Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals, Hull, UK
  1. Correspondence to:
 Dr C Williams
 Department of Microbiology, Yorkhill Hospital, Dalnair Street, Glasgow G3 8SJ, UK; craig.williamsyorkhill.scot.nhs.uk

Abstract

Objectives: To reduce the contamination rate of blood cultures taken in the Accident and Emergency (A&E) department.

Methods: The standard blood culture sampling kit was supplemented with an instruction sheet on the optimal method for drawing blood cultures and a large 62% ethyl alcohol impregnated wipe.

Results: There was a statistically significant reduction in the number of contaminants (p = 0.03).

Conclusions: Simple measures to encourage skin disinfection and appropriate sampling technique will reduce the incidence of contamination of blood cultures in the A&E department.

  • CNS, coagulase negative staphylococci
  • skin disinfection
  • blood culture
  • contamination

https://doi.org/10.1136/emj.2005.003079

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text