Tracking that missing surgical instrument

From My News, Home

MY PAPER WEDNESDAY JUNE 25, 2008

 

DAWN TAY

 

TO ENSURE nothing is left behind in a patient, she carefully counts the gauzes and surgical instruments one by one out loud to her partner, up to several times before, during and after an operation.

 

But this tedious task required of nurse Miss Emily Chin, 21, might soon become obsolete.

 

Thanks to O’Connor’s Singapore, a subsidiary of multinational conglomerate Wearnes, a new radio-frequency-identification (RFID) technology solution will be developed to track surgical items.

 

In other words, if a blade embedded with an identification tag was left in the patient, the instrument tray fitted with a sensor would alert surgeons and nurses to the missing equipment.

 

O’Connor’s was awarded the $330,000 grant for its proposal under the joint Healthcare Call-For-Collaboration.

 

It will integrate various existing RFID solutions in the marketplace into a single platform – a world first, according to its managing director Mr Leong Say Haur.

 

More than 100 instruments can be used in a surgery and all have to be tracked, according to Dr Sophia Ang, associate chairman of National University Hospital (NUH) medical board.

 

In the United States, surgery tools are left in 1, 500 patients a year, according to a 2004 article in the Canadian Operating Room Nursing Journal.

 

While Singapore doctors and nurses my paper spoke to said that such mishaps rarely occur here, they welcomed O’Connor’s new technology solution.

 

Human errors can occur in manual counting, said Ms Tan Soh Chin, deputy director of nursing at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH).

 

She said: “This technology will not only enhance patient safety but more surgeries could also be scheduled with the time saved.”

 

The company is in talks with local hospitals and KKH has confirmed that it will start pilot tests this year.

 

dawnt@sph.com.sg