Table 3.

Microbiology test ordering practices

			Microbiology test
			Blood culture		Urine culture		SST culture1		Resp. test2
Diagnosis*	Hospital		%	p3	%	p3	%	p3	%	p3
Sepsis	Hospital A	n = 205	95.1	0.64	70.2	0.02	10.7	< 0.01	60.0	< 0.01
	Hospital B	n = 42	88.1	0.06	76.2	0.81	2.4	0.34	78.6	< 0.01
	Hospital C	n = 73	97.3	0.38	86.3	0.01	1.4	0.02	17.8	< 0.01
	Total	n = 320	94.7		74.7		52.8		7.5
UTI	Hospital A	n = 67	59.7	0.77	91.0	0.64	3.0	0.27	31.3	0.02
	Hospital B	n = 50	70.0	0.05	90.0	0.54	2.0	1.00	36.0	< 0.01
	Hospital C	n = 77	49.4	0.04	94.8	0.28	0.0	0.28	3.9	< 0.01
	Total	n = 194	58.2		92.3		1.5		21.6
SSTI	Hospital A	n = 97	80.4	0.97	14.4	< 0,01	68.0	< 0.01	8.2	0.66
	Hospital B	n = 54	79.6	0.89	13.0	0.04	44.4	0.16	11.1	0.22
	Hospital C	n = 52	80.8	0.92	50.0	< 0,01	32.7	< 0.01	1.9	0.12
	Total	n = 203	80.3		23.2		52.7		7.4
LRTI	Hospital A	n = 287	80.8	0.07	48.4	0.73	1.0	0.51	68.3	< 0.01
	Hospital B	n = 164	75.0	0.36	40.2	0.01	1.8	0.71	89.0	< 0.01
	Hospital C	n = 155	74.2	0.25	60.0	< 0,01	1.9	0.70	20.0	< 0.01
	Total	n = 606	77.6		49.2		1.5		61.6
AECOPD	Hospital A	n = 172	74.4	< 0.01	38.4	0.42	2.3	0.46	59.3	0.29
	Hospital B	n = 152	57.9	0.01	33.6	0.02	1.3	1.00	92.1	< 0.01
	Hospital C	n = 84	63.1	0.54	58.3	< 0.01	1.2	1.00	14.3	< 0.01
	Total	n = 408	65.9		40.7		1.7		62.3
All	Total	n = 1731	76.1		53.7		8.7		49.3

*AECOPD: acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; LRTI: lower respiratory infection; SSTI: skin and soft tissue infection; UTI: urinary tract infection

¹SST culture: wound, pus, breastmilk or tissue culture

²Resp. test: respiratory culture, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for viral and bacterial respiratory pathogens and/or urinary pneumococcal antigen test

³p value for testing whether there is a significant difference between one hospital compared to the total frequencies of the two others by Chi-square test or by Fisher’s exact test when numbers in one or more categories were < 5