System and method of tracking surgical sponges
OwnerM. Daniel Ballardinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The apparatus and method is provided that employs a “radiopaque” object to count and account for surgical sponges in an operating room. A radiopaque object is embedded in surgical sponges so that a scanning device can detect and count a large number of the sponges within a container. The container is designed to minimize contact with the sponges by humans. In addition, a surgical team can insure that no surgical sponge is left in a patient without performing the messy and time-consuming job of individually counting sponges as they are entered and disposed of from the surgical site.
Claims35
A surgical supply tracking system, comprising:
- a plurality of surgical sponges, each sponge comprising:
- a passive, radiographically detectable object securely fixed to the sponge, wherein the radiographically detectable object appears substantially the same shape when viewed from different angles;
- a scanning device for detecting each radiographically detectable object corresponding to each surgical sponge of the plurality of surgical sponges;
- a sponge counter coupled to the scanning device, comprising:
- a processor;
- a display;
- a memory;
- logic stored on the memory and executed on the processor for counting each radiographically detectable object;
- and
- logic for displaying on the display a number corresponding to the number of counted radiographically detectable objects.
A trackable, surgical sponge apparatus, comprising:
- a plurality of surgical sponges;
- and
- a passive, radiographically detectable object securely affixed to each surgical sponge of the plurality of surgical sponges, wherein each radiographically detectable object appears substantially the same shape when viewed from different angles.
A method of tracking and counting surgical sponges, comprising the steps of:
- affixing a plurality of radiopaque objects in a plurality of surgical sponges, wherein each surgical sponge has one (1) radiopaque object;
- scanning a container containing a number of the plurality of surgical sponges that have been employed in a surgical field;
- determining, based upon the number of radiopaque objects detected in the scanning step, the number of surgical sponges in the container;
- and
- displaying on a display device the number of surgical sponges in the container.
A surgical sponge, comprising:
- a tightly-woven, absorbent fabric;
- and
- a passive, radiographically detectable object securely fixed to the fabric, wherein the radiographically detectable object appears substantially the same size when viewed from different angles.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.