• Specimens obtained by surgical,
bronchoscopic, interventional radiologic, or other clearly invasive aseptic
means
• CSF and other sterile body fluids
• Blood cultures drawn for acute processes such as sepsis, pneumonia, osteo,
meningitis, septic arthritis. [Blood cultures drawn for endocarditis,
typhoid fever, or brucellosis can be redrawn as these diseases have
intermittent shedding of the organisms.]
• Specimens for which antibiotics were started after collection; does NOT
include patients who have been in house for 1 or more days who had
antibiotics changed after specimen collection
• Specimens on a patient who has already been discharged home from the ER.
• Catheter tips if:
1. blood cultures x2 (from different
sites) were collected within 2 hours of each other and of line
removal
2. catheter was exchanged over a guide wire (i.e., the new catheter
was placed in an old site over a guide wire)
3. if the catheter is part of a clinical trial
[Rationale: positive catheter tip cultures without associated
bacteremia or signs of sepsis should not prompt antimicrobial
therapy.]
NOTE: Any specimen rejected per standard
microbiological criteria that is also unlabeled will be rejected on the
basis of the rejection criteria and will not be relabeled. (If a physician
insists on overruling rejection criteria [which is the physician’s right
after consulting with Director] then relabeling policy applies.)
