Monday, July 17, 2006

RFID Tags on Surgical Sponges

Wow, the medical error guys are going nuts! Guys are really considering RFID tags on each of our surgical sponges! They quote that 1 in 10,000 cases loses a sponge in the wound. I use about 30-40 sponges per pacemaker implant (and that's minor surgery). Okay, noone seems concerned about COST here! Geez, we'd have to use 30-40,000 of these suckers to prevent one sponge left in the wound!

Here's an idea: how about looking in the wound or doing sponge counts before you close?

--Wes

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