ClearCount Medical Solutions built its first product to target a simple error that has wrecked many otherwise successful days in the operating room: the enclosure of a used surgical sponge in the recesses of a body cavity when the patient's wound is sutured.
Developed with the protection of a patent that the company purchased from an operating room nurse and her spouse, the SmartSponge System employs radio-frequency tags inside SmartSponges that respond to the active signals of a SmartBucket electronic console. The sponges travel to and from the operating suite in the console, and they are actively counted and tracked by it during the surgical procedure.
The system adds about $25 to the cost of an operation. In return, it provides a NeverEvent Warranty which will cover hospital liabilities up to $100,000 in the event that OR personnel following the system's procedures ever leave a SmartSponge inside a patient. The company is confident that SmartSponge System will fully protect patients against this particular surgical mishap, which researchers estimate occurs as often as once in every 1,000 to 1,500 abdominal surgeries and can present hospitals with large liabilities as a result of post-operative infection and death.
With an initial $4.1 million round of investment led by Draper Triangle Ventures, ClearCount has expanded its marketing of the SmartSponge System, and has been installing them in hospitals throughout the country. The company's sponge-detecting SmartWand-DTX system, which reduces hardware cost by 70 percent and system footprint by 80 percent vs. existing RFID systems, earned the 2010 Good Design award, the world's oldest and most prestigous design competition. Also in 2010 the company won a Pittsburgh Technology 50 Award for Life Sciences and closed on a $5 million Series B financing round to help drive research and development.
"We see a very large market opportunity for a superior technology in this area of patient safety," says ClearCount CEO David Palmer.