The Impact of a Rapid Blood Culture Identification System on a Pediatric Institution

Although automated blood systems can save time, subcultures are required for growth of the organism, specific biochemical testing, assays for the identification of potential pathogens and antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Pediatric blood cultures present unique problems such as fastidious organisms, antimicrobial treatment and small specimen volumes. Furthermore, contamination of blood cultures by skin microbiota such as coagulase-negative Staphylococci may be problematic in specific populations such as immunocompromised patients where determining true pathogens can be more difficult.

GenMark’s ePlex® System is a molecular amplification and identification system with three panels for the identification of organisms causing bloodstream infections and certain associated antibiotic resistance genes. To aid in reducing the time to identification of key pathogens, resistances and possible contaminants, the ePlex® Blood Culture Identification (BCID) Panels are fully automated sample-to-answer PCR-based assays designed to identify gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, fungi and bacterial resistance genes in approximately 90 minutes from positive blood culture.

Join the featured speaker to explore how a rapid blood culture identification system can be utilized in a pediatric population while navigating best practices for integration of the system into a hospital, laboratory and stewardship network.

Speaker

Joel E. Mortensen, PhD, Director of the Diagnostic Infectious Diseases Testing Laboratories, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital

Dr. Joel Mortensen is a career academic Clinical Microbiologist in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Medical School, University of Cincinnati. Beyond providing consultation to the medical staff in clinical microbiology, his clinical interests include the application of molecular testing methods into the clinical microbiology laboratory and outpatient settings and integrating clinical microbiology into patient care through Antimicrobial Stewardship and Test Utilization.

Dr. Mortensen completed his BS from Mount Union College, Alliance, OH and PhD from the Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. He went on to pursue a postdoctoral Fellowship in medical and public health microbiology from the Baylor College of Medicine, University of Texas Medical School, Houston, TX. Dr. Mortensen is a certified High Complexity Laboratory Director (AAB), Certified Laboratory Consultant (AMT), MLT (AMT), SM (NCRM) and Allied Health Instructor (AMT). He was also a Fellow at the American Academy of Microbiology.

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