Radio-Frequency Surgical Sponge Detection: A New Way to Lower the Odds of Leaving Sponges (and Similar Items) in Patients

Note:New informationpertaining to the ClearCount system's pricing was published in September 2008.

You’ve read about it in the news, and maybe it’s even happened in your hospital: After a surgical procedure was completed, it was discovered that a surgical sponge, pad, or other object was left in the patient. Such incidents are thankfully infrequent, but they can have a number of undesirable consequences, ranging from the need to reopen the surgical wound to, in rare cases, the death of the patient. Retained surgical objects have also resulted in many expensive lawsuits and have been widely publicized in the media.

​Table:[Evaluation at a Glance: Radio-Frequency...