Factors affecting blood culture contamination rates and effective reduction measures

Blood culture collection is a crucial procedure used universally in hospital settings to identify bloodstream infections. A false positive culture arises when contamination occurs during culture collection or when handling the culture in the laboratory. These contaminated cultures cause inaccurate diagnoses resulting in longer hospital stays, increased cost, and unnecessary antimicrobial treatments. It is therefore vital to limit the rate of blood culture contamination. Here we discuss various factors that play roles in blood culture contamination rates. The roles of phlebotomy teams, the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, blood draw location, and hospital department on blood culture contamination rates will be discussed. Potential methods that can be deployed to decrease blood culture contamination rates will be compared.