In article <20020217203442.48883.qmail at web14912.mail.yahoo.com>,
hmhgmontis at yahoo.com (Glenn Montis) writes:
>1. Does anyone have specific guidelines in place to
>regulate the volume of blood drawn for blood cultures
>in relation to the age and/or weight of pediatric
>patients?
Yes, to the extent that anyone over the age of two years is treated like an
adult. Two years old and under are drawn into pediatric bottles, the minimum
and maximum of which is set by the manufacturer of your system. These
parameters should be printed on the blood culture bottles of the system you are
using.
>2. Do you allow blood cultures to be drawn from
>Central Venous Catheters, and if so, do you have any
>specific guidelines pertaining to the procedure.
Yes but these are drawn by nursing and not by phlebotomist and must be labeled
as 'line-draw'
>3. Do you allow Physicians to order only one set of
>blood cultures for an adult, or do you insist on
>drawing two sets.
We insist on two sets but physicians bypass this requirement by having nursing
draw one set if the patient is in-house. Pediatric blood cultures require only
one bottle. We also have to be careful of insurance fraud if the physician
orders one set of blood cultures and we order two and charge the patient. We've
educated our physicians as to the NCCLS requirements and I only know of one
pediatrician who wants one pediatric bottle drawn on his patient irregardless
of the age of the patient.
All of your above questions have been covered in the NCCLS guidelines and I
suggest you review them. They, after all, are the authority in laboratory
protocol.
>4. How many use automated blood culture system to
>culture other body fluids (Per, Pleural, synovial, CSF, ect...).
Not done in any of the institutions I am affiliated with. . . . and that list
is endless. BTW, the blood culturing system for all the institutions on this
endless list is the Bactec 9240.
