Location. Location. Location. The adage from the Real Estate industry might be true for blood culture as well!
That’s a big part of the message that Dr Yu-Jiun Chan, Director of the Taipei Veterans General Hospital Clinical Microbiology Laboratory in Taiwan, recently shared with Practical Patient Care in discussing the benefits of bioMérieux’s BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® blood culture system. The automated system – which can be put outside the lab for easier access and 24/7 loading – has enabled his lab to drastically reduce the time to report blood culture at the large tertiary hospital.
Here’s a preview:
ON… the importance of rapid blood culture results for patients
“I’ve personally seen that if a patient gets early, appropriate antibiotic treatment their life can be saved.”
ON… how placing a BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® unit in the Emergency Department impacted timely results
Loading requires no special skills, so overnight ER staff load samples themselves to start cultures earlier. “ER doctors appreciate quicker blood culture results. With this automated system, they can now receive results as early as the next day.”
ON… integration of blood culture with ID and AST
“Being able to integrate the blood culture system with identification (ID) and antibiotic susceptibility (AST) testing is another important aspect. We can get identification to a species level within 24 hours [with VITEK® MS]. That’s important for bacteraemic patients because studies show that if you can choose an appropriate antibiotic within 24 hours, the outcome will be very different.”
