Loading...
Obtaining blood cultures before starting antibiotics for patients admitted with pneumonia is one of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS’s) quality measures, and the recent online publication of hospitals' performance has brought increased scrutiny to emergency departments and hospitals. But are blood cultures useful in decision making? To answer this question, researchers conducted a prospective study of adult patients who were hospitalized for treatment of pneumonia and had blood cultures obtained prior to administration of antibiotics.
Of 414 consecutive patients enrolled during a 1-year period, 29 (7.0%) had positive blood cultures. Three of them died before culture results were available and were not included in the analy…