SurgiCount Medical, a division of Patient Safety Technologies (OTCBB:PSTX), today announces that North Shore Medical Center (NSMC:NSMC), part of the Partners HealthCare network, has adopted SurgiCount's computerized sponge counting system. NSMC will use SurgiCount's patient safety solution in over 12,000 surgical procedures each year across its 22 operating rooms in two hospitals: NSMC Salem Hospital in Salem, Mass. and NSMC Union Hospital in Lynn, Mass. NSMC is the first medical center in New England to implement the SurgiCount system.
SurgiCount's Safety-Sponge™ System consists of individually bar-coded surgical sponges and a portable scanner that enhances traditional manual sponge counts. North Shore Medical Center today joins other forward-looking healthcare institutions around the country using SurgiCount's patient safety solution, including The University of California at San Francisco Medical Center, University of Florida Shands, Loyola University Health Center, Chicago, Integris Health System, among many others.
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.
"Our surgical sponge inventory/tracking system has been used in over 100,000 procedures without a single incident of a retained sponge," says SurgiCount President Rick Bertran. "To be working with North Shore Medical Center facilities, is indeed an honor and we look forward to continued zero-incident rates over the months and years ahead by protecting both patients and health care facilities from manual counting errors."
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.