Effect of Blood Culture Contamination on Antibiotic Use in an Institution With Rapid Laboratory Methods and Phone-Based Clinical Follow-up of Blood Culture Results

Max G Bloomfield; Michael J Q O'Connor; Michelle N D Balm; Tim K Blackmore

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofac529

Effect of Blood Culture Contamination on Antibiotic Use in an Institution With Rapid Laboratory Methods and Phone-Based Clinical Follow-up of Blood Culture Results

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2022 Oct 7;9(10):ofac529. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofac529. eCollection 2022 Oct.

Authors

Max G Bloomfield^{1

2}, Michael J Q O'Connor², Michelle N D Balm^{1

2}, Tim K Blackmore^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Microbiology, Wellington Southern Community Laboratories, Wellington, New Zealand.
² Department of Infection Services, Wellington Regional Hospital, Wellington, New Zealand.

Abstract

In a multivariate analysis of 30 574 blood culture (BC) results, BC contamination was associated with only a small increase in antibiotic length of therapy compared to no-growth BCs (difference, 0.36 days [95% confidence interval, .05-.67]; P = .02). Stewardship processes at our institution appear to be effective in reducing the impact of BC contamination.

Keywords: antimicrobial stewardship; blood culture; blood culture contamination.