SurgiCount Medical, Inc., a division of Patient Safety Technologies, Inc. (OTCBB:PSTX), today announces its Safety-Sponge™ bar-coded surgical sponge counting system has been successfully used in over 100,000 procedures without a single retained sponge incident reported.
SurgiCount’s Safety-Sponge™ System consists of individually bar-coded surgical sponges and a portable scanner that enhances traditional manual sponge counts. The system is used by healthcare institutions around the country, including The University of San Francisco Medical Center, University of Florida Shands, Loyola University Health Center, Chicago, and Integris Health System, among many others.
“With surgical objects mistakenly left behind inside a patient after surgery occurring in one of every 9,000 general surgery procedures and an alarming one out of every 1,500 intra-abdominal operations each year, there is clearly a need to supplement the current practice of manual counting,” says Bill Adams, CEO of SurgiCount Medical. “Having been successfully utilized on over 100,000 surgical procedures, the SurgiCount Medical Safety-Sponge system is proven to have the clinical efficacy to merit widespread adoption. At an average of $15 per procedure, we also have the economic merits to extend the system to every patient and provide a new standard of care in this area.”
Of all retained foreign objects, surgical sponges are the most common and can lead to severe infections and even death. Lawsuits often result, with a landmark case last November awarding the plaintiff a $10 million settlement for a single retained sponge. This October, these “never events” will no longer be covered by Medicare and Medicaid, putting a new financial onus on healthcare facilities to adopt preventative measures to improve patient safety.
About SurgiCount Medical
SurgiCount Medical, Inc., a division of Patient Safety Technologies, Inc. (OTCBB:PSTX), manufacturers the SurgiCount Safety-Sponge™ System, a patented FDA 510k approved turn key solution to retained surgical sponges. The system is comprised of surgical sponges and towels affixed with an inseparable two-dimensional data matrix bar code and a SurgiCounter scanner to record each sponge before and after an operation. The SurgiCount Safety-Sponge™ System is also the only retained sponge prevention system to offer complete sponge inventory tracking, reporting features and integration with a medical facility’s IT system. For more information, contact SurgiCount at (951) 587-6201, or visit www.surgicountmedical.com.
Contacts:
Patient Safety Technologies, Inc.
William
Horne, CFO, 951-587-6201
will@surgicountmedical.com
or
Agency
Contact:
Crier Communications
JP Lincoln, Partner, 310-274-1878
jp@crierpr.com
