SmartSponge System: Now nothing will be left inside patient's stomach

Filed in archive Healthcare on May 27, 2008

The stomach of a patient can be a playground for doctors where at times they tend to leave surgical instruments and valuables too. This leads to an embarrassing situation for the medical fraternity when cases like these are discovered. In order to bring down such instances where doctors tend to forget their stuff inside patients an RFID system from ClearCount Medical Solutions is being used to track sponges before and after operation to prevent them from being left inside the patient.

Dubbed as SmartSponge system, packet of sponges are scanned before and after the operation and used sponges are emptied into an attached waste bin with RFID reader which keeps a track on the total inventory level. In case the total doesn't match after the operation, stomach of the patient is scanned to leave nothing to chance.

Before this it was the duty of the nurse who had to manually count the sponges which brought into picture the concept of human error. The system has been approved by FCC and FDA and is available for $19,000 with per operation cost turning out to be in the range of $35 and $50. This will not only save the doctors from any embarrassing situations but even help the nurses from any mental strain which is caused as a result of manual counting of sponges.