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Media Contact: Alan Ramsdell
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Free Webinar Addresses Blood Culture Contamination, False-Positive Blood Cultures, and Hospital Onset Bacteremia

AUSTIN, TEXAS (July 17, 2023) — Dark Daily today announced a new free webinar, “Blood Culture Contamination: Leveraging IPs to Improve this Critical Lab Quality Metric,” scheduled for Wednesday, July 26, 2023, at 1 p.m. Eastern. Lab directors, medical/lab microbiology professionals, lab quality assurance supervisors, and others interested in reducing misdiagnoses, false-positive blood cultures, and hospital onset bacteremia (HOB) will find this webinar supportive toward achieving new standards.

HOB tracking is poised to become a national quality measure, and this new development comes at a time when hospitals and their clinical laboratories are also expected to take steps to markedly reduce blood culture contamination rates to a lower benchmark of 1% from 3%, explained Barbara DeBaun, RN, MSN, CIC, a certified infection control practitioner who works as Improvement Advisor for Cynosure Health.

Quality improvement initiatives (QI) focused on reducing blood culture contamination rates to improve sepsis testing accuracy, reduce false-positive central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs), and monitor and track HOB can generate value for healthcare administration and clinical operations. DeBaun, one of two experts on the July 26 call that includes live Q&A, will be joined by Janet Conner, MT(ASCP), CIC, MSPH, who has overseen infection control across the continuum of healthcare as well as compliance with Joint Commission infection control standards.

“We’re going to connect the dots between how incredibly important it is for a partnership between infection prevention and the clinical lab to not only exist but to thrive because if we’re not working as partners, and we’re working in silos, the problem will just never be solved,” DeBaun explained in an interview with Dark Daily. “New technology takes time for people to get comfortable with it, even when it’s simple, even when it’s better than what we’re using. We’ve got a 1% or less goal versus 3% or less, so if everyone’s not on-board they need to be. We’re going to talk a lot about change and the challenges that you face when you introduce something new.”

By attending this 60-minute program, sponsored by Magnolia Medical Technologies, certified infection control (CIC) experts will:

• Review the downstream impact of false-positive blood culture contamination (BCC).
• Review the effectiveness of interventions that have been applied to reduce blood culture contamination and improve patient outcomes.
• Discuss the importance of collaboration between IP, laboratory, and clinicians for improved BCC quality.

“Blood Culture Contamination: Leveraging IPs to Improve this Critical Lab Quality Metric” is available for free, live access Wednesday, July 26, 2023 at 1 p.m. Eastern and on-demand thereafter. Use this 60-minute program to foster partnership between the clinical lab and infection preventionist team toward new national standards associated with HOB, and quality improvements targeting accurate sepsis diagnoses and false-positive CLABSIs.

Click here to register for this webinar.

For additional information, contact Amanda Curtis, 512-264-7103

About The Dark Intelligence Group

Since 1995, The Dark Intelligence Group has been the leading source of exclusive and reliable business intelligence about clinical laboratories, pathology groups, and laboratory diagnostics. The Dark Intelligence Group is the publisher of Dark Daily and The Dark Report, and each spring The Dark Intelligence Group hosts the renowned Executive War College on Diagnostics, Clinical Laboratory and Pathology Management.