Clinical Impact of Rapid Identification of Positive Blood Cultures vs. Internal Laboratory Standard

In this before-after study, different new methods for bacterial species identification from positive blood cultures will be compared towards historic controls. All samples are analyzed within the routine workflow for bacterial species identification and antibiotic resistance profiling. Patients with positive blood cultures from 2016 to 2018 receiving a conventional identification methods (controls) will be compared to patients from 2018 and 2019 with a new identification method (cases). The conventional identification method consisted in general of an over-night subculture and subsequent identification of the bacterial pathogen using either biochemical profiling or Matrix-assisted Laser-Desorption/Ionization Time-of-Flight (MALDI-TOF MS). The new identification of positive blood cultures methods include (i) either the newly introduced Biofire FilmArray© Blood Culture Identification (BCID) panel or (ii) in a subset of patients whole genome sequencing (WGS) approaches.