Association between blood culture turnaround time and clinical prognosis in emergency department patients with community acquired bloodstream infection: A retrospective study based on electronic medical records

Previous investigations have found that time to positive blood culture (TTP) is a prognostic factor for clinical outcomes. In fact, what the emergency physician sees from the medical information system is TAT (turnaround time) defined as time required to post a bacterial culture report. We propose a definition of blood culture TAT that more closely aligns with clinical considerations by measuring the time from starting specimen culture to the release of an official blood culture report. We were curious to know whether the duration of TAT is as intricately linked to the prognosis of bacteremia as TTP. To examine the association between TAT and outcomes of adult patients who present to the ED with community acquired bacteremia. Setting, and Participants: This retrospective study utilized electronic medical records from Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital (KVGH), a 1000-bed tertiary medical center in Taiwan. Patients were adults aged 18 years and older who presented to ED (Emergency department) for initial diagnosis of community acquired bacteremia from January 1, 2016 to March 31, 2021. Data analysis was performed from December 2022 to January 2023. Main outcomes and measures. The primary outcomes included mortality in the ED, all-cause in-hospital mortality, length of hospital stay, and all-cause 30-day mortality in relation to the individual first report of positive blood culture TAT. A total of 4011 eligible patients with bacteremia were evaluated, of which 207 patients had a blood culture TAT of ≤48 h. The overall 30-day all-cause mortality rate was 13%. Contrary to expectation, no statistically significant differences were observed in clinical prognosis between the TAT groups (≤48 versus >48 h). Subgroup analyses indicated that the length of TAT did not have a significant effect on clinical prognosis in patients who underwent lactate level assessment. Furthermore, no difference in clinical outcome was noted between TAT groups (≤48 versus >48 h) in terms of Gram-negative bacilli or Gram-positive cocci bacteremia. However, in patients with delayed antibiotic treatment (>3 h), a shorter TAT was significantly associated with a fatal outcome. In adults with community-acquired bacteremia, this study did not observe a significant association between blood culture TAT and clinical prognosis, except in cases of delayed antibiotic treatment.