The Impact of Implementing the Virtuo Blood Culture System on the Characteristics and Management of Patients with Staphylococcus aureus Bacteremia.

Persistent Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB) has been associated with increased mortality. Enhanced microbial detection with new blood culture technology may improve detection of S. aureus in patients with SAB. We performed a 24-month retrospective study of hospitalized adults with SAB and an infectious diseases consult comparing two time periods pre- (January to December 2018) and postimplementation (January to December 2019) in which the VersaTREK and BacT/Alert Virtuo blood culture systems were used, respectively. Measurements included SAB duration, time to positivity, source of bacteremia, antimicrobial therapy, and mortality. A total of 416 episodes of SAB occurred during the study period: 176 (42%) pre- and 240 (58%) postimplementation. Patients in both periods had similar clinical characteristics; however, patients in the postimplementation period were more likely to have intermediate (3 to 6 days; 23% versus 40%;  < 0.001) and prolonged SAB duration (>7 days; 4% versus 14%;  < 0.001). Combination antistaphylococcal therapy was more frequent postimplementation (6.3% pre- versus 15.8% postimplementation;  = 0.003), and the median time to source control was shorter (4 versus 2 days;  = 0.02). Median time to positivity for the index blood culture was shorter postimplementation (17.8 h pre- versus 13.3 h postimplementation;  < 0.001). There was no difference in 90-day all-cause readmissions (51% versus 44%;  = 0.11) or mortality (32% versus 32%;  = 0.95). An increased frequency of prolonged SAB with increased use of combination antistaphylococcal therapy was noted with implementation of a new blood culture system, likely secondary to the blood culture media; however, no differences on adverse outcomes were noted.