2
votes

Bar Codes Keep Surgical Objects Outside Patients

posted December 10, 2007 - 3:16am
Bar Codes Keep Surgical Objects Outside Patients

For years now there have been incidences where surgical objects were left inside the patient during a surgical procedure. A new technology that incorporates bar codes inside sponges and surgical instruments that can be scanned by a device, will help the surgical team to keep track of all their objects that were used for a patient during the procedure and make sure that nothing is left behind.


Website: http://slashdot.org/article.pl
Author: rawnak
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Ahhh

jtrader - Wed, 2009-14-10 9:43 am

What a relief.

I hope objects left inside becomes a thing of the past quickly.

Thanks for sharing this.

Statistics!

rawnak - Mon, 2007-10-12 3:46 am
"Every year, in the United States about 1,500 people have surgical objects accidentally left inside them after surgery, according to medical studies." "About two-thirds of the surgical objects left behind are sponges, which can lead to pain, infection, bowel obstructions, problems in healing, longer hospital stays, additional surgeries and in rare cases, death." I have quoted the statistics as appears in a news report in the ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com If these are the statistics from the US, you can imagine what it must be in India! Thanx for your comments. It's really good to meet people who have such diverse knowledge apart from their own profession!

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Good idea...

jdubhub - Mon, 2007-10-12 3:27 am
Usually, it's SOP for the nurse-in-charge of the surgery assistance team to ensure that there is a count of every surgical instrument, sponge, pad, etc. before and after the actual surgery and the checklist is signed stating that a count was, in fact, done. That's for the patient's protection as well as to protect the liability of the hospital. Unfortunately, not every hospital follows SOP as strictly. Martin Luther King hospital in Los Angeles is notorious for leaving things in surgical patients. In fact, that is one of the reasons that the hospital is closing: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-kingdrew-gallery,0,5651209.storygallery Hopefully, this technology will not be misused within the hospital and will actually save lives.

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