Sepsis Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Sepsis, including details on septicemia, diagnosis, symptoms, treatment.

Reduction of blood culture contamination rate by an educational intervention.

Eskira S, Gilad J, Schlaeffer P, Hyam E, Peled N, Karakis I, Riesenberg K, Schlaeffer F, Borer A

Infection Control Unit, Soroka University Medical Center, Beer-sheva, Israel.

The efficacy of an educational intervention to prevent blood culture contamination (BCC) in internal medicine was studied in two medical wards in a busy tertiary-care hospital in which blood cultures were obtained by physicians rather than dedicated phlebotomists. Baseline BCC rates were 5.7% and 7.1% in intervention and control wards, respectively (p 0.6), compared with 1.95% and 6.7%, respectively, post-intervention (p < 0.001). Following multivariate analysis, only an absence of intervention was an independent variable associated with BCC. Thus simple educational intervention reduced BCC in internal medicine and was considered to be cost-effective.

Published 17 July 2006 in Clin Microbiol Infect, 12(8): 818-21.
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