What you need to know about the blood culture bottle shortage
What is the situation?
Blood culture orders must be decreased due to a severe national shortage of BD BACTEC blood culture media bottles. This situation results from a shortage of the plastic used to make the bottles and is expected to last for several months.
What is the laboratory doing to address this?
To minimize disruption, Intermountain Health Laboratory Services is working with supply chain partners and local BD account representatives to monitor inventory and expedite emergency allocations when necessary. Labs in the Canyons and Desert regions will stop incubating sterile body fluids in blood culture bottles and instead culture on solid media.
What can providers do to help?
We are requesting that clinicians be mindful about when to collect blood cultures to minimize waste and optimize use.
Recommendations for blood cultures are described in the algorithm and table below. These tools are recommendations and do not supersede clinical judgment.
Blood Culture is being considered for a new clinical event:
Blood Culture is being considered to document clearance of bloodstream infection:
Additional recommendations:
Collect blood cultures only after being assessed by a clinician and an order is placed. (Do not draw Blood Culture ‘holds’ or as part of a ‘rainbow’ without an order.)
Limit blood cultures to no more than 2 sets in a 24-hour period.
Do not inoculate blood culture bottles with sterile body fluids. (Canyons and Peaks Regions)
Practice blood culture collection best practices to minimize contamination rates.