them," she says. "We found that using an
easy-to-understand kit works better for com-
pliancy."
6. Retained object detection
The Joint Commission has labeled retained
objects a "never event" and items left behind
make for good headlines in the local paper.
More importantly, says Ms. Jackson, prevent-
ing the never event from occurring is an
important aspect of patient safety that
demands your attention.
"We all know this is an area prone to break-
down, as easy as it is to count the number of
items used during surgery," says Ms. Jackson.
"We're all human and make mistakes."
Her staff is currently trialing 2 types of
retained object detection devices as a result
of a risk assessment conducted by the hospi-
tal's patient safety officer. The first involves
radio frequency identification. Each sponge
comes affixed with an RFID tag, which is
detected when a staff member waves a wand
over the patient after closing. The second sys-
tem includes sponges marked with unique bar
codes. Staff scan the removed sponges into
the system, which tracks specific sponges and
keeps an overall count.
Both systems aim to take potential human
error out of the equation. "We don't want to
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