In your job do you perform a lot of sputum culture and sensitivity test

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Ok I 'm a bit of confused here..The sputum culture and sensitivity tests take about 6 days to be completed.Obviously patients dont stay in the hospital that long...so what kind of antybiotics are prescribed to the patient? Broad-spectrum ones?

Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

We do a fair number of them on the unit I work on.Our average patient stay is 30 days so we have time to treat once the results are back.

Specializes in ICU, M/S,Nurse Supervisor, CNS.

We do quite a bit in the ICU where I work as well. While the final results may not come back soon, a lot of times we get calls from the lab within a day or two that something is growing so that antibiotics can be adjusted accordingly. In the meantime, broad-spectrum it is.

We do a fair number of them on the unit I work on.Our average patient stay is 30 days so we have time to treat once the results are back.

Wow 30 days,what kind of floor is that rehab?

Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

Complex Continuing Care.We get palliative, rehab, stable med-surg, and seniors waiting for nursing home placement.We have some for months.:)

Yeah they do get broad spectrum in the meantime.

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