Utility of Blood Cultures in Healthy Children with a History of Fever Presenting to the Emergency Department: A Comparison of Afebrile Versus Febrile on Presentation

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Introduction: Blood cultures are often obtained from healthy paediatric patients with fever on presentation to the emergency department (ED). Although published guidelines and previous research outlined indications for obtaining blood culture and the relatively low risk of bacteraemia in vaccinated children, there may be practice variability among institutions and physicians. Primary objective: To describe the demographic characteristics, diagnosis, disposition and outcome of children who are fully vaccinated, healthy and have fever from whom bacterial blood cultures were obtained. Secondary objective: To determine the rate of blood culture contamination and outcomes.