ArticleJournal of clinical microbiology2009
Impact of blood cultures drawn by phlebotomy on contamination rates and health care costs in a hospital emergency department.
Article in Journal of clinical microbiology, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT01413555 (Multicenter Implementation of a Quality Improvement Program to Reduce Blood Culture Contamination in the Emergency Department), which is not on this map. Cited by 67 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Multicenter Implementation of a Quality Improvement Program to Reduce Blood Culture Contamination in the Emergency Department
Who cites it
67 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 189 citations in OpenAlex.
- Utility of peripheral blood cultures in patients with cancer and suspected blood stream infections: a systematic review.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2012Pooled it
- Effectiveness of practices to reduce blood culture contamination: a Laboratory Medicine Best Practices systematic review and meta-analysis.Clinical biochemistry · 2012Pooled it
- Reduction in Blood Culture Contamination Through Use of Initial Specimen Diversion Device.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2017Trial
- Chlorhexidine versus Tincture of Iodine for Reduction of Blood Culture Contamination Rates: a Prospective Randomized Crossover Study.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2016Trial
- Does chlorhexidine bathing in adult intensive care units reduce blood culture contamination? A pragmatic cluster-randomized trial.Infection control and hospital epidemiology · 2014Trial
- Trial
- Comparison of blood culture contamination rates with standard practice versus two blood diversion devices at a single institution.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2026Observational
- Low-Value Blood Culture Use in Adult Emergency Department Patients: A Scoping Review.Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA · 2026Article
- Situation and questions regarding the practice of blood cultures in paediatric patients: an opinion paper.Revista espanola de quimioterapia : publicacion oficial de la Sociedad Espanola de Quimioterapia · 2026Review
- Improved time-to-detection with the new formulation of BD BACTEC Plus Aerobic/F Culture Vials: a real-world evidence study.Microbiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Impact of Initial Specimen Diversion Technique on Blood Culture Contamination Rates.Federal practitioner : for the health care professionals of the VA, DoD, and PHS · 2025Article
- Prospective Trial of a Passive Diversion Device to Reduce Blood Culture Contamination.Open forum infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of nurses regarding blood culture collection.Revista brasileira de enfermagem · 2025Article
- Comparing contamination rates in paired blood culture sets with a single-time stamp vs multiple-time stamps.Antimicrobial stewardship & healthcare epidemiology : ASHE · 2025Article
- Economic Impact in the Treatment of Coagulase-Negative Staphylococci Blood Cultures Contamination in a Middle-Income Country.Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical · 2025Article
- Effectiveness of Multimodal Intervention to Improve Blood Culture Collection in a Tertiary Care Hospital.Cureus · 2024Article
- Article
- Enhancing Patient Safety: The Role of Interdisciplinary Teams in Reducing Blood Culture Contamination.HCA healthcare journal of medicine · 2024Article
- Direct-from-Blood Detection of Pathogens: a Review of Technology and Challenges.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2023Review
- The Impact of Initial Specimen Diversion Systems on Blood Culture Contamination.Open forum infectious diseases · 2023Review
7 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
We conducted a prospective comparison of blood culture contamination rates associated with dedicated phlebotomists and nonphlebotomy staff in the emergency department (ED) at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, TX. In addition, hospital charges and lengths of stay were determined for patients with negative, false-positive, and true-positive blood culture results. A total of 5,432 blood culture collections from two ED areas, the western wing of the ED (ED west) and the nonwestern wing of the ED (ED nonwest), were evaluated over a 13-month period. Phlebotomists drew 2,012 (55%) of the blood cultures in ED west while nonphlebotomy staff drew 1,650 (45%) in ED west and 1,770 (100%) in ED nonwest. The contamination rates of blood cultures collected by phlebotomists were significantly lower than those collected by nonphlebotomists in ED west (62/2,012 [3.1%] versus 122/1,650 [7.4%]; P < 0.001). Similar results were observed when rates between phlebotomists in ED west and nonphlebotomy staff in ED nonwest were compared (62/2,012 [3.1%] versus 100/1,770 [5.6%]; P < 0.001). Comparison of median patient charges between negative and false-positive episodes ($18,752 versus $27,472) showed $8,720 in additional charges per contamination event while the median length of stay increased marginally from 4 to 5 days. By utilizing phlebotomists to collect blood cultures in the ED, contamination rates were lowered to recommended levels, with projected reductions in patient charges of approximately $4.1 million per year.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.