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Lab Guidelines & Standards
Achieve Accurate Results When Testing Blood Cultures
Blood cultures are used to detect the presence of bacteria (bacteremia) or fungi (fungemia) in the blood. Because of the clinical importance of bacteremia and fungemia, the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI, formerly NCCLS) created guidelines for laboratories and providers to implement when processing blood cultures so optimal laboratory methods can be employed and results are interpreted correctly.
CLSI’s Principles and Procedures for Blood Cultures; Approved Guideline (M47-A) was published in May 2007.
According to M47-A, the guidelines were also needed to help to control health care costs, because the costs attributable to the recovery of contaminants from blood cultures are high. Prior to M47-A, such guidelines did not exist.
Read the full article as originally published in LABMEDICINE, September 2007.
“Lab Guidelines & Standards” is a monthly column published in LABMEDICINE. Watch for additional articles from the column in future issues of CLSI eNews.
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