According to the American Nurses Association’s white paper “Redefining the Antibiotic Stewardship Team,” nurses have the responsibility to play a role in the practice of responsible antibiotic stewardship. Like all medications, antibiotics have side effects, but more important is the risk of exposing patients to unnecessary or incorrectly prescribed antibiotics, resulting in the development of antibiotic resistance. Nurses in all settings have the opportunity to have an impact on patient safety and become an active member of the antibiotic stewardship team. Having a fundamental understanding of microbiology, the collection of culture specimens, and the evaluation of culture reports is important for all nurses who administer antibiotics in their practice.

Learning Outcomes: After the session, attendees will be able to summarize basic microbiology and describe how to obtain culture specimens correctly.

Contact Hours: 1
CRNI® RUs: 2