Blood Culture Contamination and Diagnostic Stewardship: From a Clinical Laboratory Quality Monitor to a National Patient Safety Measure.

Laboratory analysis of blood cultures is vital to the accurate and timely diagnosis of bloodstream infections. However, the reliability of the test depends on clinical compliance with standard operating procedures that limit the risk of inconclusive or incorrect results. False-negative blood culture results due to inadequate volumes of blood can result in misdiagnosis, delay therapy, and increase patients' risk of developing or dying from bloodstream infections.

The Clinical Laboratory Is an Integral Component to Health Care Delivery : An Expanded Representation of the Total Testing Process.

Objectives: Developing an expanded representation of the total testing process that includes contemporary elements of laboratory practice can be useful to understanding and optimizing testing workflows across clinical laboratory and patient care settings.

Methods: Published literature and meeting reports were used by the coauthors to inform the development of the expanded representation of the total testing process and relevant examples describing its uses.

Results: A visual representation of the total testing process was developed and contextualized to patient care scenarios using a number of examples covering the detection of blood culture contamination, use of next-generation sequencing, and pharmacogenetic testing.