In this controlled before-after study, wound swabs were only processed for culture, identification, and susceptibility testing if a quality metric, determined by the Q score, was met. Rejection of low-quality wound swabs resulted in a modest decrease in reflexive antibiotic initiation while reducing laboratory workload and generating few clinician requests.
Keywords: Q score; antimicrobial stewardship; bacterial swab; diagnostic stewardship; resource stewardship; wound culture.
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Infectious Diseases Society of America.