Magnolia Medical Technologies and The Center for Phlebotomy Education announced the expansion of their training and education partnership dedicated to the prevention of blood culture contamination.
The web-based continuing education course "Preventing Blood Culture Contamination with a Closed-System Mechanical Initial Specimen Diversion Device (ISDD)" is now available with Professional Acknowledgement for Continuing Education (PACE) credits. Sponsored by the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science, PACE credits fulfill continuing education requirement for state and regional laboratory regulation boards.
The course, already available for continuing education units (CEU), now provides phlebotomists and laboratory personnel with the latest evidence-based best practices for preventing blood culture contamination. The course also analyzes the impact of sepsis misdiagnosis on unnecessary antibiotic treatment and the downstream impacts on patient safety as well as hospital costs. Each participant will earn one PACE credit hour toward their annual training and education requirements.
"We are excited to extend this important educational course addressing one of the biggest problems plaguing our healthcare system today to the laboratory audience," said Dennis Ernst, MT(ASCP), NCPT(NCCT), founding director of The Center for Phlebotomy Education. "This training and education program illustrates the clinical and economic impacts of Steripath Gen2 ISDD, empowering laboratory personnel and phlebotomists to address a problem they may have thought could not be solved," said Ernst.
Each year, tens of millions of patients in the U.S. require a blood culture test for diagnosis of sepsis and other bloodstream infections. However, the current industry accepted 3 percent contamination benchmark in the U.S. means that nearly half of all the positive blood cultures are actually false-positive because of contamination. This is unacceptable for diagnosing the number one cause of death and readmissions in U.S. hospitals.
The Steripath Gen2 ISDD is a vein-to-bottle closed-system device that diverts and isolates the initial 1.5 to 2.0 mL of blood, the portion to contain contaminants, then automatically opens a second pathway to capture the specimen.
