Historically, antibiotic stewardship teams consisted of infectious disease specialists, specifically physicians, as well as pharmacists, and more recently, specialized ID pharmacists. As antibiotic resistance surges, antibiotic stewardship teams have only in recent years grown to include nurse practitioners and physician assistants. With this progression, it is only natural NP’s and PA’s would identify gaps in education and understanding among the very individuals who are charged to collect the labs that drive all future antibiotic decision making.

Nurses understand the concept of avoiding contamination during blood culture collection as a learned procedure, but education beyond that is lacking. Nurses need to understand what happens after the blood cultures are sent to the micro lab, and the serious implications of how contaminated specimens negatively impact the nurse, lab, provider, patient, community, and the globe at large.