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Cost Effective Blood Cultures—Is It Possible or Impossible to Modify Behavior?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Harold C. Neu
Harold C. Neu*
Affiliation:
Division of Infectious Diseases, The Presbyterian Hospitalin the City of New York
*
Division of Infectious Diseases, The Presbyterian Hospital, New York, NY 10032
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Extract

Why are blood cultures drawn? Is there a purpose to the blood culture or is it a reflex reaction to a fever? Nurse says, “patient has fever,” Doctor replies “draw blood culture.” I fear that the latter is all too often the scenario that exists in the hospital today. As we enter an era where the extra laboratory tests do not “make money, keep the techs employed and justify the lab,” we must re-examine the rationale for blood cultures.

Type
Special Sections
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , January 1986 , pp. 32 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 1986

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