How to collect blood cultures
Other platforms explain it with text and video. In Making Synapses you practice it on the patient.
Contaminated blood cultures lead to wrong treatment. Clean technique is the whole skill.
Step by step
Timing
Before antibiotics when possible, without delaying treatment in sepsis. [1]
Clean the bottles
Remove caps and scrub tops with alcohol. [2]
Clean the skin
Chlorhexidine-alcohol, scrub and let dry; do not touch again. [2]
Collect
Fill aerobic then anaerobic bottle (with a butterfly), to the volume marked. [2]
Two sets
From two separate sites. [2]
Label
Site, time, at the bedside. [3]
Common errors
- Touching the site after cleaning.
- Underfilling bottles.
- Taking both sets from the same IV line.
Practice it in Making Synapses
In Making Synapses you do this on the patient, not on paper: every step goes on the checklist with a score, and in Teach mode Blocky tells you what comes next.
Making Synapses cases that train this skill
- Febrile seizure
- Catheter-associated urinary tract infection
- Neuroleptic malignant syndrome
- Post-operative atelectasis
- Transfusion reaction
- Urinary tract infection with delirium
80 Making Synapses cases train this skill: open the case library
Sources
- CDC, Guideline for Isolation Precautions (2007) and PPE sequence
- Open RN, Nursing Skills 2e (Chippewa Valley Technical College) (CC BY 4.0)
- The Joint Commission, National Patient Safety Goals
- OpenStax, Clinical Nursing Skills (reference)
Steps adapted from Open RN, Nursing Skills 2e (Chippewa Valley Technical College), licensed under CC BY 4.0. Facts and steps also follow OpenStax, Clinical Nursing Skills (reference). Making Synapses is not affiliated with these organizations. Updated: 2026-10-11.