MDA (Medical Devices Agency) on "persistent" false positive blood cultures:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
A persistently high number of false positive blood culture results involving inappropriate phlebotomy techniques is resulting in delays in identifying the true cause of bacteraemias and in unnecessary treatment with antibiotics, says the Medical Devices Agency. Inadequate decontamination is at the centre of the problem, which the agency first reported in January 1998, highlighting the need to use new needles.