How can the yield and the impact of microbiological diagnosis be improved at your institution?

And there is one point I think we’ve not talked about. It’s that all the time that we can gain before the sample has reached the micro lab. It depends on clinicians, it depends on nurses, it depends on clerks and other health care staff. Obtaining samples– the time starts the moment the sample is obtained. The time between when the sample is obtained and it reaches the micro lab is time that we are losing. We all have to contribute to speed diagnosis. You think that there is room for improvement there? Yeah. There are two critical moments– before the sample arrives to the lab; and after we have the result, how to communicate to the clinician.

Two very critical points not directly related to the microbiology diagnosis. The hospital has to warrant how the sample reach to the lab of microbiology as soon as possible in the better conditions as possible. But we do have to contribute. The hospital has to warrant, but we clinicians, we have to make sure that the sample reaches the micro lab. It’s also our duty. Here is another point that we haven’t talked about. Is the micro lab open 24/7? Should it be open? That’s something we have talked about natural times. Sundays. Night shifts. Bank holidays. That’s not a problem– that’s not Bill’s problem. It affects me. Of course. We right now have the technology to guarantee the microbiology diagnosis in hours.

But we need to be open 24 hours per seven days and we have of course clinicians that could answer our calls. I agree. You talked before that one of the critical steps besides the microbiological diagnosis was the post lab. The information. The input to the clinician. What problems do you find with that? Most of times if we can release one informed laboratory results to our clinician, the clinician is not there, probably will be another colleague who doesn’t know about the patient. You have to inform to another colleague without information about the patients. You lose the time. So you fill a gap there. You fill a gap. How do you think that gap would be filled?

With a programme of antimicrobial stewardship in all the hospital who facilitate the communication and collaboration between professionals dedicated to ID.