Effect of Blood Culture Contamination on Antibiotic Use in an Institution With Rapid Laboratory Methods and Phone-Based Clinical Follow-up of Blood Culture Results.

In a multivariate analysis of 30 574 blood culture (BC) results, BC contamination was associated with only a small increase in antibiotic length of therapy compared to no-growth BCs (difference, 0.36 days [95% confidence interval, .05-.67]; P = .02). Stewardship processes at our institution appear to be effective in reducing the impact of BC contamination.