Laparoscopic procedures that emergently convert to open procedures place the patient at risk for unintentional retained foreign objects (RFOs).What new and evolving risk reduction strategy could prevent RFOs and frustrating,time-consuming miscount adventures at the end of these procedures?
A) Creating precounted laparotomy sets with only the few necessary instruments
B) Performing radiologic surveillance on all conversion procedures at closure
C) Counting all instruments including a laparotomy set before the laparoscopy
D) Replacing or tagging sponges and laparotomy instruments with RFID chips

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

At a minimum,all facilities should have a "count" policy that reflects AORN's Recommended Practices for Sponge,Sharp,and Instrument Counts.While standard counting prevented 82% of retained sponges,bar-coded and RFID-tagged sponges prevented about 97.5% of retained sponges.The bar-coded sponges were the most cost-effective.Researchers suggest that,given medical and liability costs of more than $200,000 per incident,sponge tracking technologies can substantially reduce the incidence of retained surgical sponges at an acceptable cost.

Laparoscopic Procedures That Emergently Convert to Open Procedures Place the Patient