Blood culture quality and turnaround time of clinical microbiology laboratories in Chinese Teaching Hospitals: A multicenter study.

PURPOSE: Blood culture (BC) remains the gold standard for the diagnosis of bloodstream infections. Improving the quality of clinical BC samples, optimizing BC performance, and accelerating antimicrobial susceptibility test (AST) results are essential for the early detection of bloodstream infections and specific treatments. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective multicenter study using 450,845 BC specimens from clinical laboratories obtained from 19 teaching hospitals between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2021. We evaluated key performance indicators (KPIs), turnaround times (TATs), and frequency distributions of processing in BC specimens. We also evaluated the AST results of clinically significant isolates for four different laboratory workflow styles. RESULTS: Across the 10 common bacterial isolates (n = 16,865) and yeast isolates (n = 1011), the overall median (interquartile range) TATs of AST results were 2.67 (2.05-3.31) and 3.73 (2.98-4.64) days, respectively. The specimen collections mainly occurred between 06:00 and 24:00, and specimen reception and loadings mainly between 08:00 and 24:00. Based on the laboratory workflows of the BCs, 16 of the 19 hospitals were divided into four groups. Time to results (TTRs) from specimen collection to the AST reports were 2.35 (1.95-3.06), 2.61 (1.98-3.32), 2.99 (2.60-3.87), and 3.25 (2.80-3.98) days for groups I, II, III, and IV, respectively. CONCLUSION: This study shows the related BC KPIs and workflows in different Chinese hospitals, suggesting that laboratory workflow optimization can play important roles in shortening time to AST reports and initiation of appropriate timely treatment.

Yunnan Baiyao reduces hospital-acquired pressure ulcers via suppressing virulence gene expression and biofilm formation of Staphylococcus aureus.

Yunnan Baiyao (YB) as a kind of famous Chinese herbal medicine, possessed hemostatic, invigorating the circulation of blood, and anti-inflammatory effects. Identifying strategies to protect patients at risk for hospital-acquired pressure ulcers (HAPU) is essential. Herein, our results showed that YB treatment can effectively reduce the acne wound area and improve efficacy in a comparative study of 60 cases HAPU patients with S. aureus positive of acne wound pathogens. Furthermore, YB inhibited HIa expression and suppressed accessory gene regulator (agr) system controlled by regulatory RNA II and RNA III molecule using pALC1740, pALC1742 and pALC1743 S. aureus strain linked to gfpuvr reporter gene. Moreover, YB downregulated cao mRNA expression and inhibited coagulase activity by RT-PCR, slide and tube coagulase test. Additionally, YB downregulated seb, sec, sed, and tsst-1 mRNA expression to suppress enterotoxin and tsst-1 secretion and adhesion function related genes sarA, icaA, and cidA mRNA expression. Taken together, the data suggest that YB may reduce HAPU via suppressing virulence gene expression and biofilm formation of S. aureus.