Reducing blood culture contamination: an environmental imperative

Blood culture (BC) investigation remains the gold standard for diagnosis of bloodstream infections. However, BC contamination can have clinical implications for the patient, cost implications for service providers and less well documented, environmental impacts. Efforts to reduce BC contamination are a longstanding theme in quality improvement initiatives in emergency departments and hospitals, prompted by the hospital costs, healthcare inefficiencies and antimicrobial stewardship efforts [1,2]. The WHO global analysis of health care waste in the context of COVID-19, has reported that tens of thousands of tonnes of extra medical waste was produced from the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, basing its estimates on the quantity of personal protective equipment (PPE) [3]. Additionally, recent literature has also shown increased BC contamination rates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our study reviews the trend of BC contamination during the COVID-19 pandemic in our institution’s Emergency Department. We further discuss some of the potential implications of BC contamination, including potential environmental, economic and efficiency implications.