The study involved embedding RFID chips in sponges, which were then left inside a temporarily closed surgical site. The chips beeped when the surgeon waved a detector wand over the site. The devices were found to be 100% effective, activating within three seconds on average.
In the US, sponges and foreign objects are left in patients during open cavity operations once in every 10,000 procedures. Further research is required to determine whether the tags will be cost-effective, and form a better system than the manual before-and-after counting strategy conducted by operating staff at most hospitals.
Dr A. Macario, the physician who led the study, says that in the future a combination of RFID tags and other techniques including manual counting will be used. We need a system that is really fail-safe where regardless of how people use a counting system technology, the patient doesn’t leave the operating room with a retained foreign body.
