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Reducing Blood Culture Contamination in the Emergency Department: The impact of a peer to peer targeted educational session on blood culture contamination rates.

Blood cultures are an important tool in the acute care setting for the evaluation and management of severe infections and sepsis. Blood cultures allow for the utilization of effective antibiotic therapies tailored to specific and susceptible infections. Contaminated specimens result in patients erroneously recalled to emergency departments, inappropriate antibiotic therapies, prolonged hospitalizations, and increased cost of care. 

In this quantitative quasi-experimental study, a Linkert scale survey was used to assess staff knowledge and comfort in the proper procedure of drawing blood cultures. Results from the survey were then used to create a peer to peer education, highlighting the greatest areas of opportunities for staff education. Education was implemented by five nurse who were subject matter experts (SME) in the procedure. Finally, blood culture contamination rates were monitored to assess the effectiveness of the peer to peer education. Blood culture continuation rates prior to education was 4.3% over the previous six months, and 4.5% over the previous twelve months; after staff education, blood culture contamination rates were 3.6% over a monitored period of four months.