The “Standard” for Blood Culture Contamination is Changing

~1.4 million patients are potentially impacted each year by a misdiagnosis of sepsis.11 We can do better.

Training and Education on “Best Practices” Alone Will Not Solve the Problem

Clinicians rely on blood culture results for patient treatment decisions, and hospitals and healthcare systems spend considerable efforts training and educating on skin preparation and aseptic techniques. While these best practices are important, contamination caused by sources outside of the nurse or phlebotomist’s control can still occur, resulting in inaccurate or false-positive results and other negative outcomes.12

Human Factors

Risk of touch-point contamination during assembly, preparation of supplies, and skin prep.

Skin Flora (microorganisms)

You can disinfect but not sterilize the skin. Up to 20% of skin flora remains visible in the keratin layer of the skin even after skin prep.

Skin Plugs & Fragments

will enter the culture specimen bottle and commonly will contain viable microorganisms (when present).

The Impact

Unnecessary Antibiotic Administration

Increases patient risk for Clostridioides difficile Infection (CDI)13

Can cause Acute Kidney Injury (AKI), with reported risks as high as 36%14

Extended Patient Stay and Unnecessary Tests

Extended hospital stay of 2.0 to 2.4 days increases exposure to Hospital-Acquired Infections (HAIs) and Hospital-Acquired Conditions (HACs)15

Can result in unneeded tests for 35% to 50% of positive blood cultures16

SECONDARY INFECTION

3 Million +

antibiotic-resistant and C. difficile infections each year and 48,000 people die based on the CDC's 2019 report27

ADVERSE DRUG EFFECTS

1 in 5 Patients

experience adverse drug event (ADE) associated with antibiotic administration in acute care hospital setting28

WASTED RESOURCES

$6 billion +

is spent by our healthcare system each year on unnecessary treatment associated with false-positive blood culture results49

Elevating the Standard in Sepsis Testing Accuracy

Reduction in false-positive blood culture results by up to 100% 19
10-month [11,202 blood culture sets] sustained contamination rate as low as 0.0% 19
Positive predictive value as high as 97% 20
Reduction in vancomycin DOT as much as 31% 21
Shorten length of stay by average of 2.2 days (P=0.0001) 22
Decrease annual costs by an average of $1.9M 23

Steripath Micro Proven Results

We’re on a mission to improve the diagnostic accuracy and timeliness of sepsis test results.

Join The Mission