THE CHALLENGE OF REDUCING THE RATE OF BLOOD CULTURE CONTAMINATION IN A GERIATRIC HOSPITAL IN ISRAEL

Leibovitz Arthur, Zaidenstein Ronit, Heymann Anthony, Taichman Shoshana, Mizrahi
Eliyahy, Molchanov Inna, Lubart Emily

ABSTRACT This article describes our efforts to reduce the contamination rate in our geriatric hospital. Our program consisted of an educational stage and a second stage that screened the opinion of physicians of the geriatric hospital versus those of a general hospital with regard to blood culture sampling practices. The blood culture contamination rate was reduced from 9% to 6% but this did not quite reach statistical significance (p=0.21). The physicians’ questionnaire results strengthen our perception that the difficulty in further reduction could be related to the uncooperative condition of many geriatric patients, thus requiring more hands in the process of blood drawing. Our study indicates that such educational efforts should continue and emphasize that reduction in the contamination rate of blood samples is an important and achievable goal of the geriatric hospital system. Keywords : blood stream infections, blood culture contamination, geriatric hospital.

PDF