Blood Cultures

• Fever of unknown origin
• Sepsis
• Shock
• Chills/fever

Particular care is taken to avoid skin bacterial contamination when blood cultures are drawn:

• Cleanse the skin with povidone-iodine or alcohol prior to venipuncture.
• After the blood is drawn, discard the needle and replace it with a fresh, sterile needle before injecting the blood into the culture tube.
• Cleanse the rubber stoppers on the culture tubes with povidone-iodine or alcohol prior to placing the blood into the tubes.

Blood cultures are most likely to be positive for organisms during a temperature spike.

Normal Values*

*These are general values taken from a variety of sources. The actual normal values may vary from lab to lab and from one type of testing protocol to another.