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Self WH, Mickanin J, Grijalva CG, Grant FH, Henderson MC, Corley G, Blaschke Ii DG, McNaughton CD, Barrett TW, Talbot TR, Paul BR. Reducing blood culture contamination in community hospital emergency departments: a multicenter evaluation of a quality improvement intervention. Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine. 2014 Mar;21(21). 274-82. NIHMSID: NIHMS556080.
Abstract
Blood culture contamination is a common and preventable problem in the emergency department (ED). In a previous single-center study, changing the process of ED blood culture collection from the traditional "clean," nonsterile procedure to a fully sterile procedure with standardized use of sterile gloves, large-volume chlorhexidine skin antisepsis, and fenestrated sterile drapes resulted in a substantial reduction in contamination. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of this sterile blood culture collection process for reducing blood culture contamination in two community hospital EDs.