Patient Safety and Healthcare Quality

3% is For Wimps: Achieving and Maintaining Blood Culture Contamination Rates Below 1%

This basic level complimentary webinar is managed by Whitehat Communications and sponsored by Cardinal Health.

Presented by: Dennis J. Ernst MT (ASCP), NCPT(NCCT)

Tuesday, February 25, 2020 1:00 – 2:00 PM EST

P.A.C.E.® CE will be available at no cost.

Blood Culture Contamination is an enormous problem in healthcare delivery systems everywhere, costing facilities on average over $1 million every year1. The current industry average of three percent2 is neither acceptable nor sustainable in today's climate without serious consequences to patients treated unnecessarily, a healthcare facility's financial wellbeing, and contribution to the global threat of antibiotic resistance.
This presentation will include discussions on the most commonly committed errors in the collection of blood cultures that lead to contamination and false positives, the impact of contaminated cultures on the patient and the facility, and sustainable strategies to reduce blood culture contamination to one percent or less. Strategies will not only include effectively correcting human error, but effective tracking, staff commitment, and emerging technologies.

Learning objectives:
1. Define the impact of blood culture contamination on patients and the facility
2. List the most common human errors that contaminate blood cultures
3. Discuss a new technique that significantly, immediately, and sustainably reduces contamination rates

Continuing Education:
• One P.A.C.E.® contact–hour will be provided for this session. Cardinal Health is approved as a provider of continuing education programs in the clinical laboratory sciences by the ASCLS P.A.C.E.® Program
• This session is approved for 1 Florida CE credit. Florida Board of Clinical Laboratory Personnel approved number: 50–12563

Registration URL: (click here)

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Lezlee Koch, ASCLS Patient Safety Committee
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