Reducing Blood Culture Contamination Rate in King Abdullah Hospital, Bisha, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

One major issue in care settings is blood culture contamination. When a blood sample is contaminated with microorganisms that aren't in the patient's blood, hospital stays get longer, antibiotic usage gets excessive, and healthcare costs go up
Methodology
This nursing blood culture sample process quality improvement project was carried out in all of King Abdullah Hospital's inpatient wards, Bisha, Saudi Arabia. This design is commonly used to assess and examine current conditions or practices in an effort to make them better. Two tools are employed in the risk analysis process: the Ishikawa diagram and the FMEA then blood contamination rate was evaluated after corrective actions
Results
Failures with the highest RPN included improper site preparation, failing to wash hands before the procedure, and failing to sanitize the top surface of the culture bottle with alcohol before transferring blood, following the implementation of corrective actions, such as improved awareness-raising about blood culture collection and site preparation, lectures and training workshops for precautions, strictly adhering to policies and procedures, monitoring, and evaluation, The post-intervention Risk Priority Number (RPN) results showed a considerable decrease, and the frequency of contaminated blood culture samples was also decreased.
Conclusion
Increased awareness of blood culture collection and site preparation, alcohol wiping of culture bottle tops, proper supply setup prior to procedure commencement, training seminars and lectures on precautions, rigorous adherence to policies and procedures, monitoring, and evaluation are recommended to decrease the rate of blood culture contamination.