Texas hospital keeps tabs on surgical sponges
28 October, 2010
category: RFID
Hunt Regional Medical Center based out of Greenville, Texas has implemented the SmartWand-DTX, part of an RFID-based platform from ClearCount to prevent retained surgical sponge incidents.
The SmartWand-DTX in conjunction with the SmartSponge System, both of which are FDA-cleared, uniquely identifies each surgical sponge so that they can easily be counter and detected.
A safety net for human error, this technology allows staff to operate at an exceptional level of patient safety, and also provide staff with a safer and more efficient method for reconciling surgical counts.
According to a recent study, inaccurate sponge counts were mostly attributed to team fatigue, difficult or long operations, sponges sticking together, shift changes or procedures with a large number of sponges.