Kurin helps Hospital Go from Good to Great

• Community Based Hospital had implemented blood culture collection best practices with a diversion technology and achieved <1% target (0.77%).
• Leadership discovered Kurin at a national tradeshow. Facility leadership recognized improved design, no new clinical steps, less waste volume and cost savings over current technology.
• After 9 months of Kurin, system has achieved an average overall contamination rate of 0.49% (36% reduction) and has saved an additional $125,000 in annual savings from reduction of contaminations and cost of technology.

Phlebotomists collect blood cultures in this 205-bed flagship hospital of this health system. Their BCC rates were already well below the national average due to their emphasis on best practices, but the hospital wanted to reduce these contaminations further, so brought in the Steripath device. Although initial months did show some improvement, compliance lagged and rates increased. Laboratory leadership saw Kurin at the 2022 AACC and recognized an easier-to-use device that might improve compliance. Kurin was also less expensive, so they brought it in.

Exercising caution not to sacrifice quality with a lower cost item, a trial was initiated with just two phlebotomists and in that first month, the data illustrated the value in switching to Kurin. The users provided feedback that Kurin was exceptionally easy to use. With the full implementation, compliance indeed had improved, driving the overall rate down below 0.5%, a 36% reduction. Kurin drove down rates that were already good to make them great.

Kurin’s ease-of-use helped this community hospital find greater success in reducing BCCs compared to their attempts with Steripath. Compliance has consistently exceeded over 80% per month and, based on the recent CDC estimate on the cost of a false positive blood culture and savings per device, the hospital has already saved an additional $125,000+.