Using Adjunct Technology with the Surgical Count

The surgical count is a critical process for patient safety. Sentinel event data from The Joint Commission identifies unintentionally retained surgical items (RSIs) as the third most common event type in 2023.¹ In one study, 1,430 contributing factors were identified across 13 categories in a review of 319 occurrences of retained surgical sponges.² Human factors, leadership, and communication were the most common contributing factors for retained sponges.² In the 319 cases reviewed, a sponge count was performed in 77.4% of reports, with the count reported as correct 80.6% of the time.²