Culture results via the internet: a novel way for communication after an emergency department visit.

Objective: To determine whether the Internet could be used to facilitate personal delivery of culture results to care givers after patient discharge from the pediatric emergency department.

Study Design: We recruited families of children who had cultures taken and were discharged home from our tertiary pediatric emergency department. Parents were given a unique ID and password to retrieve information on culture results from the study web-site. Results were posted and an e-mail was sent to the family. Access pattern to the web-site was recorded, and follow-up calls at 5 and 10 days after posting were made.

Results: A total of 527 families were approached; 224 were excluded. Of 303 cultures available, 24 (8%) were positive and 5 (2%) were considered to be contaminants. 186 (61%) parents accessed the Internet-system after mean 94 hours (range 1 minute to 611 hours) after posting. Of the 243 (80%) families reached for follow-up, 66 (27%) "had no time" to enter the website.

Conclusions: This web-based follow-up system is valuable for negative cultures but access by parents is delayed for positive cultures. Future effort to increase awareness regarding importance of obtaining culture results is needed.