Collecting blood cultures prior to giving antibiotics allows clinicians to tailor their choice of medications. Initial broad-spectrum antibiotics can be changed to an appropriate spectrum drug.  Timely and appropriate antibiotics have been shown to decrease mortality in a variety of infectious conditions.

Compliance with this Sepsis Resuscitation Bundle element is defined as the percent of patients presenting with severe sepsis and/or septic shock who had blood cultures collected prior to broad-spectrum antibiotic administration.

Numerator: The number of patients who had blood cultures collected before broad-spectrum antibiotic administration following presentation with severe sepsis and/or septic shock

Denominator: The number of patients presenting with severe sepsis and/or septic shock

Increase blood culture collection prior to broad-spectrum antibiotic administration to 100 percent of cases.

Data is collected for this measure on each individual patient using the Individual Chart Measurement Tool.  This can be done concurrently or retrospectively as detailed here.

Once all the Individual Chart Measurement Tools have been collected for the month, use the Monthly Measurement Worksheet to integrate the data by combining the results of all the Individual Chart Measurement Tools.

At the end of each section on the Monthly Measurement Worksheet you will find a line designated “Numerator” and a line designated “Denominator,” which are ready for input into the pre-configured Improvement Tracker for the measure.

Related Changes

Blood Cultures Obtained Prior to Antibiotic Administration