QI project reduces blood culture contamination rates

A quality improvement project at San Joaquin General Hospital in French Camp, Calif., decreased blood culture contamination rates in emergency department patients, improving outcomes and lowering costs, according to an American Journal of Nursing study. The researchers instructed nurses to use a sterile diversion tube to collect an initial blood specimen before collecting the blood cultures. To improve compliance, nurses were told to send the diversion tube with the culture bottles to the lab. Of 1,904 blood cultures collected, 1,242 included blood cultures with sterile diversion tubes, and 662 included blood cultures without sterile diversion tubes. Blood culture contamination rates fell by 85%, from 2.7% in the group not using the sterile diversion tubes to 0.4% in the group using the sterile diversion tubes.