ArticleJournal of the American Medical Directors Association2020
Trends in Collection of Microbiological Cultures Across Veterans Affairs Community Living Centers in the United States Over 8 Years.
Article in Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Microbiology testing around the time of antibiotic initiation among residents of long-term care facilities.The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy · 2026Article
- Trends in microbiology testing in Australian long-term care facilities: national cohort study.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Evaluating the prognostic value of microbial communities in predicting recurrence of laryngeal carcinoma: a multicenter case-control study.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2025Article
- A Hospital Infection Management Department-Led Intervention to Improve the Pathogen Submission Rate Before Antimicrobial Therapy Using a FOCUS-PDCA Model.Infection and drug resistance · 2025Article
- Improving Antimicrobial Utilization and Infection Control in Ophthalmology: An Information-Assisted Transparent Supervision and Multidisciplinary Team Model.Infection and drug resistance · 2024Article
- Are Antibiograms Ready for Prime Time in the Nursing Home?Journal of the American Medical Directors Association · 2020Article
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7 authors.
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Abstract
objectivesTo describe and evaluate changes in the collection of microbiological cultures across Veterans Affairs (VA) Community Living Centers (CLCs) nationally.
designDescriptive study.
setting146 VA CLCs.
participantsWe identified both positive and negative microbiological cultures collected during VA CLC admissions from January 2010 through December 2017. MEASURES: We measured the average annual percentage change (AAPC) in the rate of cultures collected per 1000 bed days and per admission, overall and stratified by culture type (ie, urine, blood, skin and soft tissue, and respiratory tract). AAPCs were also calculated for the proportion and rate of positive cultures collected, overall and stratified by culture type and organism (ie, Escherichia coli, Proteus mirabilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus spp, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella spp, Enterobacter spp, Morganella morganii, Citrobacter spp, Serratia marcescens, and Streptococcus pneumoniae). Joinpoint regression software was used to assess trends and estimate AAPCs and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).
resultsOver 8 years, 355,329 cultures were collected. The rate of cultures collected per 1000 bed days of care decreased significantly by 6.0% per year (95% CI -8.7%, -3.2%). The proportion of positive cultures decreased by 0.9% (95% CI -1.4%, -0.4%). The most common culture types were urine (48.4%), followed by blood (27.7%). The rate of cultures collected per 1000 bed days of care decreased per year by 6.3% for urine, 5.0% for blood, 4.4% for skin and soft tissue, and 4.9% for respiratory tract. In 2010, S aureus was the most common organism identified, and in all subsequent years E coli was the most common. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS: We identified a significant reduction in the number of cultures collected over time among VA CLCs. Our findings may be explained by decreases in the collection of unnecessary cultures in VA CLCs nationally due to increased antibiotic stewardship efforts targeting unnecessary culturing and antibiotic treatment.
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