![]() We compared the duration of each step during and outside of laboratory office hours. We performed a retrospective study to determine the duration of each step of the process, from culture positivity to antimicrobial administration, in a hospital with an offsite microbiological laboratory. 16,20 Unfortunately, it is unknown whether the time to administration of an adequate antibiotic regimen is influenced by what time of day a culture is flagged as positive. Having the laboratory and clinical ward at different sites has been shown to increase time between culture collection and start of incubation. 18,19 As culture specimen transport is generally only performed during office hours, cultures identified as positive after the last transport of the day are not processed until the next morning. Furthermore, there is an increasing number of onsite hospital microbiological laboratories being moved offsite to save costs and to increase performance. 17 However, most microbiological laboratories do not process blood cultures after office hours, leaving room for potential delays. 16 Immediately incubating collected blood samples has been shown to reduce these delays. demonstrated that culture yield can be lower during the weekend, 15 possibly due to lower staff presence or delayed incubation or processing. 14 With regard to blood culture processing, a study by Morton et al. 10-13 In the United Kingdom, this has even led to a call for equal standards of performing care, seven days a week. Previous studies have shown that patient care delivered during hospital office hours is associated with a shorter length of stay and lower mortality in comparison to care delivered after hospital office hours. 8,9 It is therefore important to identify unnecessary delays in the process, from blood culture collection to administration of a culture-based antimicrobial agent. 6,7 Delayed culture reporting may also impede important antimicrobial stewardship goals such as streamlining and de-escalating of antimicrobial therapy. ![]() Nevertheless, because these empirical antibiotic regimens can still be inadequate, delayed reporting of blood culture results is associated with increased infection-related mortality. ![]() Timely adequate treatment of bloodstream infections is important to reduce mortality and morbidity, 1-5 so in most suspected cases patients immediately receive empirical broad-spectrum antibiotics. Antibiotics, bloodstream infections, blood cultures, laboratory staffing, microbiology, delayed treatment, after office hours
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