Zeitschrift für Neonatalbiologie

Abstrakt

A quality initiative to improve the reliability of blood cultures in newborns with suspected sepsis

Pradeep Kumar Velumula, Dhruv Gupta, Amit Sharma, Basim Asmar, Sanket Jani, Nithi Fernandes, Roopali Bapat, Sanjay Chawla

Background: Delay or false-negative diagnosis of sepsis in neonates may be associated with severe morbidity and mortality.

Objectives: To improve optimal blood culture volume by 25% from baseline within two months and maintain the improvement for ten consecutive months.

Methods: Data on blood culture volume and staff medical knowledge about sepsis were collected during the pre- and post-intervention phases. During the intervention phase, we conducted several Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles that included education, accountability, feedback, support, and awareness raising during the intervention phase.

Results: A total of 287 blood culture samples were analyzed; 114 samples during the pre-intervention period and 173 samples during the post-intervention period. The target proportion of BC samples with optimal volume was achieved every month and the results were maintained for 10 consecutive months.

Conclusion: This study highlights the importance of simple and realistic interventions to collect and maintain adequate blood culture volumes in newborns.