Reducing Hospital Stay in Neonates with Suspected Sepsis

‘Suspected sepsis’ is one of the most commonly made diagnoses on any neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Most neonates are discharged after 48 hours following negative blood culture results, thus inefficient analyses of these samples leads to delays in discharge. A baseline study demonstrated that, on average, discharge was delayed by four hours per neonate, with a range of up to 21 hours, with the longest delays being incurred as samples were not being analysed when they were received by the microbiology department out of hours. Furthermore, problems were due to increase, as the microbiology department was imminently moving to another hospital. In the short term, samples were couriered to another microbiology department, which incubates them overnight. The long-term solution is for the department to purchase their own in-house analyser, for which a business case was developed, presented, and agreed to by the lead neonatal consultant. Unfortunately, the Trust does not believe the venture is financially viable at present.