A randomized controlled trial conducted by Brigham and Women’s
Hospital - in affiliation with Harvard Medical School - finds bar-coded, computer-assisted
surgical sponge counting systems reduce the chance of counting
errors during patient surgery by a factor of 3 to 1.
The results of the study – conducted by
patient safety researchers Dr. Atul Gawande and Dr. Caprice Greenberg -
were published recently in the Annals of Surgery (Ann Surg
2008;247: 612-616). An article summarizing the study results entitled “Bar-Coding
Surgical Sponges To Improve Safety: A Randomized Controlled Trial”
can be found at www.annalsofsurgery.com.
Previous studies have shown that counts are falsely reported as correct
in the majority of cases of retained sponges and instruments, resulting
in the surgical team incorrectly believing that all the sponges are
accounted for. The Boston study was based on 300 general surgery
operations and showed that using a bar-coded surgical sponge system
during surgery detected over ten times more counting errors than
traditional counting methods in cases where sponges were misplaced or
counted incorrectly.
“Leaving surgical sponges inside patients
happens more often than people think and far more often than it should,”
said Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, surgeon at Brigham and Women’s
Hospital and a co-author of the study. “Surgical
teams have been seeking a solution to this problem for decades and this
trial of a computer-assisted method of counting surgical sponges gives
us reason to believe a viable, proven and cost-effective solution has at
last been found."
Study Validates System Developed By SurgiCount
Medical
“It’s estimated
that 3,000 to 5,000 cases of retained surgical sponges occur every year,
and that’s simply not acceptable,”
says Bill Adams, CEO of SurgiCount Medical, a division of Patient Safety
Technologies, Inc. (OTCBB:PSTX) and the leading manufacturer of
bar-coded surgical sponge counting systems today.
“This study clearly validates internal
studies of our Safety-Sponge™ System and
confirms the results our customers have seen in the field,”
Adams added. “With its introduction to
hospitals almost two years ago, the Safety-Sponge™
System has been used in at least 80,000 procedures without incidence of
one retained sponge. I’m confident this study
will help persuade medical institutions nationwide to update their
sponge-counting methodologies, help eliminate ‘false
correct’ counts that lead to retained items,
and finally eradicate this needless risk to their patients and to
themselves.”
SurgiCount’s Safety-Sponge™
System consists of individually bar-coded surgical sponges and a
portable scanner that enhances traditional hand sponge counts. The
system is used by healthcare institutions around the country, including
The University of San Francisco Medical Center, University of Florida
Shands, Loyola University Health Center, Chicago, and Integris Health
System, among many others.
About Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Brigham and Women’s Hospital is a 747-bed
non-profit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding
member of Partners HealthCare, an integrated healthcare delivery
network. The facility is an international leader in basic, clinical and
translational research on human diseases, involving more than 860
physician-investigators and renowned biomedical scientists and faculty
supported by more than $416 million in funding. For more information,
visit www.brighamandwomens.org.
About SurgiCount Medical
SurgiCount Medical, Inc., a division of Patient Safety Technologies,
Inc. (OTCBB:PSTX), manufacturers the SurgiCount Safety-Sponge™
System, a patented FDA 510k approved turn key solution to retained
surgical sponges. The system is comprised of surgical sponges and towels
affixed with an inseparable two-dimensional data matrix bar code and a
SurgiCounter scanner to record each sponge before and after an
operation. The SurgiCount Safety-Sponge™
System is also the only retained sponge prevention system to offer
complete sponge inventory tracking, reporting features and integration
with a medical facility’s IT system. For more
information, contact SurgiCount at (951) 587-6201, or visit www.surgicountmedical.com.
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