Blood culture contamination continues to be a serious problem in clinical laboratories, contributing to increased cost of hospital care and patient exposure to unnecessary antibiotics that may lead to antibiotic resistance. Blood diversion — the practice of discarding or excluding the first part of a venipuncture collection for blood culture — is increasingly being adopted by health systems to systematically address (and lower) blood culture contamination rates. In this presentation, Dr. Brad Karon and Michele Legried will address the evidence behind blood diversion as a mechanism to lower blood culture contamination rates and discuss the experience at Mayo Clinic's Rochester campus with a pilot of one blood diversion device.
Originally posted: November 16, 2022
Brad Karon, M.D., Ph.D.
Division Chair, Clinical Core Laboratory Services
Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology
Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota
Michele Legried
Quality Specialist
Laboratory Services
Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota
Upon completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
This series is appropriate for phlebotomists, phlebotomy managers, phlebotomy educators, and other patient care staff involved in specimen collection.
The following types of credit are offered for this event:
Mayo Clinic Laboratories is approved as a provider of continuing education programs in the Clinical Laboratory Sciences by the ASCLS P.A.C.E.® program. This program has been approved for a maximum of 1.0 P.A.C.E.® contact hour.
Mayo Clinic Laboratories is approved as a Continuing Education Accrediting Agency for the Clinical Laboratory Sciences for the State of Florida. Florida Board of Clinical Laboratory Personnel has designated this program for General credit. This program has been approved for 1.0 contact hour.
1. Watch the video.
2. Complete the posttest and evaluation that launches immediately following the program.
3. Generate and print your certificate(s).
Level of instruction for this program is intermediate.
Credit expires: 11/16/24
Course director(s), planning committee, faculty, and all others who are in a position to control the content of this educational activity are required to disclose all relevant financial relationships with any commercial interest related to the subject matter of the educational activity. Safeguards against commercial bias have been put in place. Faculty members also will disclose any off-label and/or investigational use of pharmaceuticals or instruments discussed in their presentations. Disclosure of this information will be published in course materials so those participants in the activity may formulate their own judgments regarding the presentations.
Contact us: mcleducation@mayo.edu