For most people, sponges are wonderful, extremely useful inventions. They are absorbent, last forever and above all, hold up against the toughest cleaning challenges. So it may seem surprising that, in the world of surgery, nothing prevents a clean, sterile patient quite like a simple sponge.
In today’s hospitals, one in every 1,000 intra-abdominal surgeries results in a sponge left behind in a patient. And in the world of surgery, where even a 30-minute delay can nearly double the risk of infectious complications, looking around for sponges can waste precious seconds. But
Mercy Philadelphia Hospital, which already boasts better-than-average infection rates, has recently acquired the
SmartWand DTX, a new tool from Pittsburgh medtech company
ClearCount that will aid in its detection of errant surgical sponges by detecting not only the fact that sponges are missing but how many are missing and where surgeons can find them.
“At Mercy Philadelphia, the loss of sponges is an infrequent occurrence but we wanted to be proactive as, obviously, safety is our top priority,” says Mercy Philadelphia Hospital Staff Nurse Barbara Giampietro. “We heard about the radio frequency technology from online searches and in RN magazines and we knew it was something we had to have to maintain our low number of retained sponges.”
Surgical sponges come with a chip inserted inside that allows for detection in patients. The SmartWand works with the chips to provide more detailed information for surgeons unable to waste valuable seconds searching for missing equipment. With the addition of the SmartWand system, not only will Mercy Philadelphia be improving patient care, they will be saving money. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the average Medicare payment for admissions in which an object is left behind during surgery is $61,962 and potential liability is $50K to $100K in settlement funds.
“For some time, there was talk of doing post-op x-rays to check for retained sponges or instruments but that added a great cost and extra OR time for each patient,” says Giampietro. “Now we can feel safe and secure that our counts are correct without that extra time. We know that our number of retained sponges will not only be low, it should be zero.”
Source: Barbara Giampietro, Mercy Philadelphia HospitalWriter: John Steele