Kurin Videos

Best Practice in Blood Culture Collection

This essential resource for nurses and phlebotomists explains the importance of blood culture testing and its current shortcomings associated with culture contamination.

The video walks the viewer through the established best practice for blood culture collection and identifies the common points of contamination.

Lastly, the viewer is introduced to flash technology, sometimes referred to as initial specimen diversion, which sidelines the first flash of blood and skin contaminants therein.

View Best Practice in Blood Culture Collection at betterbloodcultures.com

Cry Wolf: Consequences of False Positive Blood Cultures

Cry Wolf explains the consequences of blood culture contamination.

Just like the boy who cried wolf, high numbers of false positive results cause physicians to question the test and/or to treat an infection that isn’t real, compromising a fast and appropriate response.

Expert clinicians highlight the high cost of false positive blood cultures for both patients and hospitals.

There is a consensus that caregiver compliance with best practices of blood culture collection can reduce false positives blood cultures.

“If emergency nurses really understood all the consequences, compliance would not be an issue.”

View Cry Wolf at BetterBloodCultures.com.

Kurin Lock in Action

Each Kurin blood culture collection set features a Kurin Lock^®, a small but powerful low-volume device that sidelines the initial flash of blood during the routine process of drawing a blood culture.

Read the Transcript

The Kurin Lock® with Flash Technology sidelines the initial flash of blood from an accessed vein to reduce skin contaminants that enter into the blood culture sample.

Here is an inside look at the Kurin Lock in slow motion.

With venous access, the initial flash of blood—and contaminants within—fills a U-shaped side channel until it reaches a white porous plug.

Kurin requires only about 0.15mL of precious blood, making the device ideal for peds and patients at risk for hypovolemic anemia. Although 0.15ml is a small amount, it is enough to wash out a 21 gauge needle 35 times.

Once the side channel is full, blood will flow a variable distance into the adjoining sampling channel before stopping. This indicates that the set is ready for specimen collection.

When a vacuum is applied, blood then passes from the vein into the collection device through the sampling channel.

Studies show that best practice compliance combined with Flash Technology to sideline the initial flash of blood can reduce contaminated cultures by more than 80%, improving the clinical value of blood culture testing for safer, more effective, and lower cost treatment of patients.

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