Do we need blood culture stewardship programs? A quality control study and survey to assess the appropriateness of blood culture collection and the knowledge and attitudes among physicians in Swiss hospitals

Factors associated with blood culture sampling for adult acute care hospital patients with suspected severe infection: a scoping review using a socioecological framework

Background

Reliable blood culture sampling for patients with suspected severe infection is critical, but evidence suggests that blood culture samples are not always reliably collected for acute hospital patients with severe infection. There is a pressing need to understand the barriers and facilitators of optimal sampling practices for patient safety and antimicrobial stewardship.

Methods

We conducted a scoping review to identify evidence of factors associated with reliable blood culture sampling, for adult patients with suspected severe infection in acute care in high-income countries. We searched bibliographic databases (MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, CINAHL), reference lists and citations between 2013 and February 2024. Findings were mapped to a socioecological framework.

Results

We retrieved 1823 records from the database searches; 7 studies were eligible for inclusion, with 8 additional studies identified from reference lists and citation searches. All 15 included papers identified factors at the individual level of influence, including patient factors (demographics, clinical signs and symptoms) and staff factors (knowledge of guidelines, attitudes and beliefs, emotion, clinical experience and training, and perception of economic cost). Evidence gaps existed in relation to factors at interpersonal, situational, organizational, community and policy levels.

Conclusions

Our review provides insights into blood culture sampling practices in hospitals, and highlights possible evidence gaps as potential areas to guide future research and inform the development of interventions to improve blood culture sampling in hospitals. Existing research has been dominated by a focus on individual levels of influence, with a paucity of evidence on influences at the interpersonal, situational, organization, community and policy levels.

Assessing paediatric blood culture quality: surveys of clinician and laboratory practices in Australia and New Zealand

Paediatric blood cultures are vital for the diagnosis of paediatric bloodstream infections. Quality of paediatric blood culture collection, processing and reporting depend on multiple factors, with a paucity of literature describing these in practice. We conducted separate surveys of clinicians and laboratory staff to assess quality standards and knowledge related to paediatric blood culture collection, analysis, and interpretation to identify improvement opportunities. We received 144 clinician and 28 laboratory responses to our surveys from respondents principally located in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand and principally working in tertiary paediatric hospitals and associated laboratories. In the clinician survey, knowledge regarding optimal blood culture volume collection and related practices varied widely, with a lack of local guidelines on blood culture collection. Only 10 (7%) of 144 respondents were aware of a hospital guideline containing age-based or weight-based volume recommendations for paediatric blood culture collection. In the laboratory survey, the majority (21/27, 78%) of laboratories reported not routinely measuring adequacy of blood culture fill volume, nor blood culture contamination rates (18/26, 69%). There is substantial room for improvement of paediatric blood culture quality, even in well-resourced settings.

Blood culture bottle shortage mitigation efforts: analysis of impact on ordering and patient impact

Objective design

In June of 2024, Becton Dickinson experienced a blood culture bottle shortage for their BACTEC system, forcing health systems to reduce usage or risk exhausting their supply. Virginia Commonwealth University Health System (VCUHS) in Richmond, VA decided that it was necessary to implement austerity measures to preserve the blood culture bottle supply.

Setting

VCUHS includes a main campus in Richmond, VA as well as two affiliate hospitals in South Hill, VA (Community Memorial Hospital (CMH)) and Tappahannock Hospital in Tappahannock, VA. It also includes a free-standing Emergency Department in New Kent, VA.

Patients

Blood cultures from both pediatric and adult patients were included in this study.

Interventions

VCUHS intervened to decrease blood culture utilization across the entire health system. Interventions included communication of blood culture guidance as well as an electronic health record order designed to guide providers and discourage wasteful ordering.

Results

Post-implementation analyses showed that interventions reduced overall usage by 35.6% (P < .0001) and by greater than 40% in the Emergency Departments. The impact of these changes in utilization on positivity were analyzed, and it was found that the overall positivity rate increased post-intervention from 8.8% to 12.1% (P = .0115) and in the ED specifically from 10.2% to 19.5% (P < .0001).

Conclusions

These findings strongly suggest that some basic stewardship interventions can significantly change blood culture practice in a manner that minimizes the impact on patient care.

Blood Culture Use in Medical and Surgical Intensive Care Units and Wards

Importance

Blood culture (BC) use benchmarks in US hospitals have not been defined.

Objective

To characterize BC use in adult intensive care units (ICUs) and wards in US hospitals.

Design, Setting, and Participants

A retrospective cross-sectional study of BC use in adult medical ICUs, medical-surgical ICUs, medical wards, and medical-surgical wards from acute care hospitals from the 4 US geographic regions was conducted. Critical access hospitals, less than 6 months of BC data, and non-US hospitals were excluded. The study included BC use data from September 1, 2019, to August 31, 2021. Data were analyzed from February 23 to July 14, 2024.

Main Outcomes and Measures

The primary outcome was BC use per 1000 patient-days. Adjusted means with 95% CIs were calculated using mixed-effects negative binomial regression models adjusted for unit type, hospital bed size, geographic region, seasonality, and state COVID-19 case load, with random intercepts accounting for clustering at unit and hospital levels. Secondary outcomes included blood culture positivity, single BCs, BC contamination, and minimum threshold for BC use where blood culture positivity would be optimized.

Results

A total of 362 327 blood cultures were analyzed from 27 medical ICUs, 35 medical-surgical ICUs, 121 medical wards, and 109 medical-surgical wards from 48 hospitals in 19 states and the District of Columbia. The adjusted mean BC use per 1000 patient-days was 273.1 (95% CI, 270.2-275.9) for medical ICUs, 146.0 (95% CI, 144.5-147.5) for medical-surgical ICUs, 80.3 (95% CI, 79.8-80.7) for medical wards, and 65.1 for medical-surgical wards. Blood culture use was significantly higher across all 4 unit types in hospitals with more than 500 beds compared with 500 or less beds and in the West-Midwest compared with other regions. Single blood culture and positive blood culture rates were below 10% across all 4 unit types. Of the 292 units, 97% had a mean BC contamination rate within 3% of the recommended threshold, and 51% were within 1%. The minimum BC use thresholds (ie, BC use below this number may represent undertesting) were 120 BCs per 1000 patient-days for medical ICUs, 80 BCs per 1000 patient-days for medical-surgical ICUs, and 30 BCs per 1000 patient-days for medical-surgical wards.

Conclusions and Relevance

The findings of this study suggest that blood culture positivity may help determine appropriate BC use for individual unit types.

Mixed-methods multicenter assessment of healthcare workers' knowledge, perceptions, and practices related to blood culture utilization in hospitalized adults

OBJECTIVE

To understand healthcare workers' (HCWs) beliefs and practices toward blood culture (BCx) use.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional electronic survey and semi-structured interviews.

SETTING

Academic hospitals in the United States.

PARTICIPANTS

HCWs involved in BCx ordering and collection in adult intensive care units (ICU) and wards.

METHODS

We administered an anonymous electronic survey to HCWs and conducted semi-structured interviews with unit staff and quality improvement (QI) leaders in these institutions to understand their perspectives regarding BCx stewardship between February and November 2023.

RESULTS

Of 314 HCWs who responded to the survey, most (67.4%) were physicians and were involved in BCx ordering (82.3%). Most survey respondents reported that clinicians had a low threshold to culture patients for fever (84.4%) and agreed they could safely reduce the number of BCx obtained in their units (65%). However, only half of them believed BCx was overused. Although most made BCx decisions as a team (74.1%), a minority reported these team discussions occurred daily (42.4%). A third of respondents reported not usually collecting the correct volume per BCx bottle, half were unaware of the improved sensitivity of 2 BCx sets, and most were unsure of the nationally recommended BCx contamination threshold (87.5%). Knowledge regarding the utility of BCx for common infections was limited.

CONCLUSIONS

HCWs' understanding of best collection practices and yield of BCx was limited.

Procalcitonin for safe reduction of unnecessary blood cultures in the emergency department: Development and validation of a prediction model

OBJECTIVES

Blood cultures (BCs) are commonly ordered in emergency departments (EDs), while a minority yields a relevant pathogen. Diagnostic stewardship is needed to safely reduce unnecessary BCs. We aimed to develop and validate a bacteremia prediction model for ED patients, with specific focus on the benefit of incorporating procalcitonin.

METHODS

We included adult patients with suspected bacteremia from a Dutch ED for a one-year period. We defined 23 candidate predictors for a "full model", of which nine were used for an automatable "basic model". Variations of both models with C-reactive protein and procalcitonin were constructed using LASSO regression, with bootstrapping for internal validation. External validation was done in an independent cohort of patients with confirmed infection from 71 Spanish EDs. We assessed discriminative performance using the C-statistic and calibration with calibration curves. Clinical usefulness was evaluated by sensitivity, specificity, saved BCs, and Net Benefit.

RESULTS

Among 2111 patients in the derivation cohort (mean age 63 years, 46% male), 273 (13%) had bacteremia, versus 896 (20%) in the external cohort (n = 4436). Adding procalcitonin substantially improved performance for all models. The basic model with procalcitonin showed most promise, with a C-statistic of 0.87 (0.86-0.88) upon external validation. At a 5% risk threshold, it showed a sensitivity of 99% and could have saved 29% of BCs while only missing 10 out of 896 (1.1%) bacteremia patients.

CONCLUSIONS

Procalcitonin-based bacteremia prediction models can safely reduce unnecessary BCs at the ED. Further validation is needed across a broader range of healthcare settings.

Leaving no culture undrawn: Time to revisit the CLABSI and CAUTI metrics

Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) are quality metrics for many ICUs, and financial ramifications can be applied to hospitals and providers who perform poorly on these measures. Despite some perceived benefits to tracking these metrics, there are a range of issues associated with this practice: lack of a solid evidence base that documenting them has led to decreased infection rates, moral distress associated with identifying these infections, problems with their definitions, and others. We discuss each of these concerns while also including international perspectives then recommend practical steps to attempt to remediate use of the CLABSI and CAUTI metrics. Specifically, we suggest forming a task force consisting of key stakeholders (e.g., providers, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), patients/families) to review CLABSI and CAUTI-related issues and then to create a summary statement containing recommendations to improve the use of these metrics.