Tamara Johnson, RN, BS: Magnolia Medical Technologies: Employee (Ongoing)
The persistent possibility of contamination prevents blood culture, a diagnostic tool critical to the preservation of positive patient outcomes, from providing reliable projections. Target contamination rate benchmarks were revised in 2022 following nationwide observations of protocol breakdown throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Blood sampling techniques that reduce opportunities for human error were increasingly valued both on paper and in practice, and the best of these methodologies enabled ambitious restrictions on ‘acceptable’ blood culture contamination rates. Adoption of best-practices has been sluggish and marked by coast-to-coast inequities, with patients shouldering all manner of quality-of-life burdens just as healthcare facilities shoulder financial expenses. This session explores, toward the prevention of misdiagnoses, antibiotic misuses and associated ills, how vascular access specialists at all levels could learn from practices where evidence outsizes adoption.
Learning Objectives:
Recite recent revisions to recommended routine, per Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines and other authoritative publications, relating to sampling blood for culture.
Recognize how gaps between patient outcomes on paper and patient outcomes in practice are being bridged by prepared, proactive personnel.
Predict the outcome improvements and safety enhancements locally attainable should best practices supplant dated practices in blood sampling.
