ASSIST - Automated System for Surgical Instrument and Sponge Tracking

Author

Rivera, Nilo ; Mountain, Rosemary ; Assumpcao, Lia ; Williams, Allen A. ; Cooper, A.B. ; Lewis, Douglas L. ; Benson, Richard C. ; Miragliotta, Joseph A. ; Marohn, Mike ; Taylor, Russell H.

Author_Institution

Whiting Sch. of Eng., Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD

fYear

2008

fDate

16-17 April 2008

Firstpage

297

Lastpage

302

Abstract

Every surgical item used during surgery (e.g., sponges) must be accounted for after surgery to ensure that none of these items is left inside the patient. Despite the numerous precautions in place, in approximately 1 in 1500 cases, something gets left behind inside the patient´s body. This paper presents ASSIST, an automated system for surgical instrument and sponge tracking that increases the safety of surgical procedures. ASSIST utilizes RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology to aid in accounting for all items used during surgery. The design takes into account safety, simplicity, ease of deployment, and ease of use. An initial evaluation utilizing RFID-tagged sponges demonstrates that ASSIST can reliably track surgical sponges with minimal impact to current operating room procedures. Sources of error that can impact the reliability of the system are also discussed.

Keywords

biomedical equipment; medical computing; radiofrequency identification; surgery; tracking; ASSIST automated system; RFID technology; radio frequency identification; sponge tracking; surgical instrument tracking; Biomedical engineering; Guidelines; Hospitals; Radiofrequency identification; Safety; Surgery; Surges; Surgical instruments; USA Councils; X-rays;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

RFID, 2008 IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Las Vegas, NV

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-1711-7

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-1712-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/RFID.2008.4519358

Filename

4519358