Hospitals can do manual supply counts, use supplies that emit a radio frequency, barcode surgical items and communicate. Some preventative measures are more costly than others.
Virginia Lowe, a practicing doctor and a lawyer who specializes in medical malpractice cases, discusses a CT scan of client Todd Gordon. It shows a mass that turned out to be wadded-up surgical gauze mistakenly left inside the patient during a routine biopsy.When a surgeon accidentally leaves a surgical tool inside a patient’s body after a procedure, the harm can be severe. The patient can suffer from life-threatening infections, organ damage, and an additional surgery to remove the object.
Surgical instruments should be arranged carefully on trays, each in a designated spot where it must be returned after a surgeon uses it and hands it back. For all counts, one nurse should count aloud, as two other OR staffers watch. Typically, an operating room has a “circulating nurse” to help provide oversight. All used and counted items should ultimately be placed into a designated container.
“It’s very, very effective, but it’s not cheap,” Schabacker said. “You need proprietary gauzes and sponges and other materials.”. Every sponge, piece of gauze, or other surgical tool gets barcoded and scanned before it’s used. A nurse, using a handheld device, scans the barcoded object again when it is handed back. A computer tracks the count, which is displayed on a screen. The barcode scanner has about a 97% detection rate, according to Schabacker.
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