Blood cultures.
Started by mjl1717
12-120 hours. Seriously.
A screamingly positive blood culture will come back the next time it's reported (ours get reported at 10a/10p for some reason) so one that gets drawn at 6p might come back as early as 10a the next day if it's smokin' hot. Otherwise they're reported q24h up to 5 days and then they get reported as "no growth" and chucked in the red bin, unless you ask them to hold them for something like Nocardia or other slow-growing bugs.
In general, expect it to take 24-48h to get ID and Sensitivities back (sensitivities usually come about 24h after ID). Some labs are starting to use PCR assays early to screen for staph and discriminate CoNeg Staph from MRSA to avoid over-treating with vanco.
Thank you?
If your hospital uses bactec culture bottles they are reported when they first become positive. The machines let the tech know as soon as a bottle is positive.
Correct. But when this actually gets reported varies from place to place. I'm pretty sure most places use BacTec (or similar) culture systems. Its one thing for the $15/h lab tech to find out the result, and quite another for somebody caring for the patient to hear about it.
