Purposeful microbiology comment added to urine cultures with Staphylococcus aureus increases orders for follow-up blood cultures

Introduction. Patients with Staphylococcus aureus bacteriuria (SABU) often have underlying invasive disease, including S. aureus bacteremia (SAB). It has been proposed that most patients with SABU should have a blood culture done to rule out SAB. A preliminary audit suggested that our local hospitals had a low rate of follow-up blood culture orders for patients with SABU. In response to this, our microbiology laboratory changed the comment appended to urine cultures with growth of S. aureus to make a more assertive link between SABU and SAB and to recommend follow-up blood cultures. Aim. We designed a retrospective quasi-experimental study to see if the change in microbiology comment wording had an effect on clinician behaviour. We hypothesized that this simple comment change to make a more assertive link between SABU and SAB would lead to an increase in follow-up blood