Does anyone record the station that the machine they are drawing a culture from is on? Our tech suggested we should be doing this but I don;t get the logic behind it. I mean unless the machine is pulled for repair then that station won't be supplying another machine that we would be culturing for another year(we draw 4 machines a month and each machine once a year) so I don;t see how that would even be used for trends. Let me know, Thanks!!!

I don't see any point to that unless you were trying to rule out the machine vrs. the wall panel for bad cultures or something. If you ever need to find out what station the machine was on you can find it on the treatment sheet. If you have a patient code or something like and you draw cultures I would probably note the station then just for reference.

One advantage of doing this is, if the result is <50 cfu/ml, then the water feeding the machine is <50 cfu/ml. You can take credit for a water sample of your loop. Of course, this only works if you don't have a bacteria filter between your loop and your machine (i.e Diasafe filter).

We don't record what station it is, in the 2 units we have that are on the central ROs but we do record if a dialysate sample is taken on machine which is using a portable RO. We just make a note that is was tested with a portable, if we get a high reading then we know it was on a portable and not the central RO in the unit. Then only the portable is in question and not the whole dialysis unit using the central

Thanks guys!!...We do the beginning and ond of the loop is cultured also so we don;t need to take credit for the station so I think I am going to just negate that one our monthly culture log.