Reducing blood culture contamination in the emergency department: an interrupted time series quality improvement study.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Blood culture contamination is a common problem in the emergency department (ED) that leads to unnecessary patient morbidity and health care costs. The study objective was to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a quality improvement (QI) intervention for reducing blood culture contamination in an ED.

Methods

The authors developed a QI intervention to reduce blood culture contamination in the ED and then evaluated its effectiveness in a prospective interrupted times series study. The QI intervention involved changing the technique of blood culture specimen collection from the traditional clean procedure to a new sterile procedure, with standardized use of sterile gloves and a new materials kit containing a 2% chlorhexidine skin antisepsis device, a sterile fe

SUBMITTER: Self WH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3623801 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature