Technical note: Discard the specimen collection swab directly at point of care to improve extensive automated processing in clinical microbiology laboratories.

ABSTRACT

We compared, in terms of microorganisms recovery, the discard of specimen collection swab, after swirling into its medium, directly at point of care, with its placing into the medium and vortexing on arrival in the laboratory. Our results show that these two procedures are overlapped in terms of bacterial recovery.