Clinical impacts of the rapid diagnostic method on positive blood cultures

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of short-term incubation (STI) protocol on clinical outcomes of bloodstream infection (BSI) patients.

Methods: A total of 1363 positive blood culture records from January 2019 to December 2021 were included. The main clinical outcomes included pathogen identification turnaround time (TAT), antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) TAT, and length of total hospital stay.

Results: The TAT of pathogen identification and AST significantly decreased after implementing the STI protocol (2.2 vs 1.4 days and 3.4 vs 2.5 days, respectively, with P < .001 for both). Moreover, for patients with Gram-negative bacteria (GNB)-infected BSIs, the length of total hospital stay decreased from 31.9 days to 27.1 days, indicating that these patients could be discharged 5 days earlier after implementing the STI protocol (P < .01).

Conclusion: The protocol led to a significant reduction in TAT and improved clinical outcomes, particularly for GNB organisms. The findings suggest that the STI protocol can improve patient outcomes and hospital resource utilization in the management of BSIs.

Keywords: bacterial identification; bloodstream infections; clinical outcomes.