How can digital technologies improve patient safety?

Patients should be better off when leaving the hospital. Despite this self-evident statement, some patients can get infected while staying in the hospital, which in some cases could even lead to death. Each year, about 1 in 25 U.S. hospital patients is diagnosed with at least one healthcare acquired infection (HAI), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It clearly goes against the number one priority which should be patient safety. It also represents a significant burden on the healthcare system.
Nosocomial infections are the most commonly mentioned HAI. On the other end of the spectrum, infections due to retained surgical instruments are barely, if at all, mentioned while they could be easily prevented. Let’s discuss how digital technologies can help prevent retained surgical instrument-related infections.

What are retained surgical instruments?

It happens that sponges, gauze, needles, or even instruments are sometimes left inside the patient’s body after a surgery.
One explanation could be any distracting event occurring in the operating room (OR), even small talks amongst healthcare professionals. Another one could be an emergency. In fact, surgeries in which unexpected changes occur during the procedure are nine times more likely to result in a Retained Surgical Items (RSI) event, researchers say.
Though the occurrence of RSI is rare, it is also barely ever reported as it impacts both the reputation of the surgeon and the hospital.

Infections due to retained surgical instruments can be life-threatening

Surgical instruments left inside patients after surgery can lead to severe infections, if not death. The mortality rate is as high as 2% as per statistics of the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Though human errors are inevitable, prevention strategies exist to avoid the risk of surgical items being inadvertently left behind in patients’ bodies. It is estimated that 1,500 cases of RSI could be avoided every year in the U.S.

How can smart tracking help prevent infections?

Counting manually each item before and after surgery is a traditional approach to prevent such occurrences from happening. Such a method is highly human-dependent and will be impacted by any changes in procedure or team members.

On the other hand, the deployment of smart tracking of surgical instruments enables a precise inventory count of tools before and after a procedure. When a surgical instrument is equipped with a chip and connected to a platform, real time asset tracking enables hospitals and asset providers to precisely locate the item in question, limiting the risk of any adverse events such as retained surgical instruments cases.

Another technological advancement consists in applying Artificial intelligence (AI) to detect retained items. Using an AI-equipped computer aided detection (CAD) tool that flags potential “retained” items, surgeons will be able to instantly identify and remove RSIs.

Moving forward...

Thanks to digital technologies, accurate counting can be improved, human errors dramatically reduced, and health acquired infections prevented. With the introduction of a unique device identification system by the FDA and many other authorities, the demand for surgical instrument tracking systems is likely to remain high. Good news for patient safety!