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Surgical Tools to Include RFID

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the now-just-remember-to-use-the-wand dept.

andrewman327 writes "Reuters is reporting that hospitals are considering embedding RFID tags in surgical tools to prevent leaving them in patients. After closing a patient, doctors would wave a receiver over the body to look for the chips which would indicate that something was left inside. The biggest current stumbling block is the chip's size, though scientists hope they will continue shrinking as the state of the art advances."

8 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. AFTER they close the patient?-for repairs. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I'd like to know how they make that kind of mistake? It's not like there's a hell of a lot of room in there.

    Anyway put the patient on a non-metallic table and run a metal detector over them.

  2. Re:A better idea... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This won't stop bits of surgical gauze being left beind. Can't chip them?

  3. How common is this problem... by dudeX · · Score: 4, Interesting

    that we have to have use technology to prevent this from happening?
    Why would surgeons (or assistants) think it's okay to leave a foreign object lying on top of an organ or tissue in the first place?! Also why is the surgeon in such a rush that s/he would be so sloppy?

    Maybe this would be more appropiate for battlefield sitautions where things can get hairy, but then again, it's pretty rare to do open surgery in the battlefield!

    1. Re:How common is this problem... by LunaticTippy · · Score: 4, Interesting
      It sounds as if you're unaware that US hospitals are in a state of absolute crisis. It isn't the surgeon's fault, and it isn't their choice. They are forced to work back-to-back 14 hour shifts. Emergency rooms are having their budgets slashed, having increased business from uninsured patients who can't afford routine care, and have trouble keeping staff from the abysmal working conditions and low pay.

      Here is a good article on the subject. It claims the ER system is on the verge of collapse.

      Hardly thinking it's okay to make mistakes, these poor people are in a constant state of sleep deprived chaotic panic.

      --
      Man, you really need that seminar!
  4. sterilization? by Yonder+Way · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How rugged are RFID chips? How are they going to hold up to being heated in an autoclave for sterilization?

  5. Can they take the heat? by the+darn · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Don't they use an autoclave or some such to sterilize the instruments? Can the RFID chips take the heat, moisture and pressue invloved in that procedure?

    --
    Ceci n'est pas un post.
  6. Re:A better idea... by hob42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This sounds like a fantastic idea, but it's likely it'd never be anything but fantasy.

    My hospital just got around to putting computers in the operating rooms, and it'll be another couple years before we're acutally using them for charting and get rid of all the dead trees.

    Something this flashy (read: expensive) for a (supposedly) rare occurance isn't gonna fly in today's hospital. Actually, I don't see anywhere but grant-funded specialty hospitals using RFID for counts. Now, I can see RFIDs in instruments being used to streamline the cleaning/processing/sterilization process - take a basin full of instruments, wave them one by one under the wand, and sort them into the proper sets. That could hold some promise and might get the process of getting it into the OR started.

  7. Re:A better idea... by scottv67 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But hospitals aren't going to go for something this elaborate and expensive for patient safety alone.

    Riiiight. What is cheaper? Implementing this system to make sure no surgical implements are left inside a patient or paying a MEGA lawsuit when something is left inside a patient (and the resulting negative publicity in the local press)?

    Also, we (I work in healthcare) are seeing a bigger push for an asset tracking system that would be able to instantly display the location of certain "assets" that like to disappear in the hospital. Not stuff that is being stolen but items that are taken to a room and used and the next person who wants to use that device can not find it. An example would be: "Show me the current location of all of our infusion pumps."

    The assets we want to track would have a small tag attached. A wireless (not necessarily 802.11) infrastructure would be able to use triangulation to determine the location of devices and display them on a floor plan. The bigger shops already have this. Implementing this service is on our To Do list.

    Things that A) improve patient safety or B) save us money stand a very strong chance of getting implemented.