Effect of blood culture contamination on antibiotic use in an institution with rapid laboratory methods and phone-based clinical follow-up of blood culture results

Abstract In a multivariate analysis of 30,574 blood culture (BC) results, BC contamination was associated with only a small increase in antibiotic length of therapy compared to no-growth BCs (difference 0.36 days, 95%-CI 0.05-0.67, p = 0.02). Stewardship processes at our institution appear to be effective in reducing the impact of BC contamination.