Systems and methods of accounting for surgical instruments and disposables
First Claim
1. A method of preventing surgical items from remaining in a patient'"'"'s body post operatively comprising:
- attaching an RF transponder tag to each of a plurality of surgical items prior to use in a surgical procedure; and
scanning the patient'"'"'s body prior to closure with an RFID reader device.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for the preventing unintended surgical instruments and surgical disposables from remaining in the body cavity of a patient post surgically. Individual items are tagged with an RFID transponder tag preferably at the time of manufacture. Then, after an operation is complete, but prior to would closure, the body of the patient is scanned using an RFID reader device, such as, a hand held reader device to detect the presence of any latent RFID tags. As long as no tags are identified it is presumed that the body cavity is free of any unintended items. This avoids sponge counting and other overhead intensive methods of accounting for surgical items during a surgical procedure.
122 Citations
24 Claims
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1. A method of preventing surgical items from remaining in a patient'"'"'s body post operatively comprising:
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attaching an RF transponder tag to each of a plurality of surgical items prior to use in a surgical procedure; and
scanning the patient'"'"'s body prior to closure with an RFID reader device. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 15, 16)
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9. A method of accounting for surgical items during a surgical procedure comprising:
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scanning a group of RFID-tagged items with an RF reader device prior to performing a surgical procedure on a patient;
performing the surgical procedure utilizing at least one of the RFID-tagged items;
scanning used and unused items after performing the surgical procedure; and
scanning the patient'"'"'s body with the RF reader device before closing if any items are unaccounted for. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13)
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17. A system for preventing surgical items from remaining in the body of a patient post-operatively comprising:
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a plurality of surgical items, each item comprising an RFID tag attached thereto; and
an RFID reading device adapted to identify the presence of each of the plurality of surgical items by reading data from the RFID tags. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
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Specification