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Monday, May 28, 2012

Computer Systems and Surgery

By Allyson Westcot


The technology employed in medicine today, often in the form of tough computerized systems and notebooks, helps ensure patient safety in a rather more efficient and overall better manner than manual record-keeping ever could. The World Health Organization recently named some areas in which patient safety had to to be improved. Panasonic rugged laptops can be utilized to do this.

The concept of inventory might seem more like a clerical job than one at once related to patient care. But tracking the number and variety of surgical tools employed in the OR is a matter of patient safety, given that every year there are numerous cases of items being left inside patients.

While there are undoubtedly cases where a clip or tiny object of some type are stitched up inside a patient without causing bad effects, most cases will cause the patient pain, illnesses and sickness. In a number of cases, these objects can even be fatal if not found and removed.

Counting the tools before, during and after an operation is a way to confirm this doesn't occur. Yet this method hasn't stopped cases of this happening over the years. Even the American College of Surgeons put out a study in 2008 that explained that counting was untrustworthy. With today's technology, there are new ways to inventory surgical instruments to make the chance of an object being left inside a patient exceedingly rare.

Rugged systems in the OR can now be used to trace surgical tools and sponges to be sure that the same ones are there at the end than were at the beginning. Radio frequency identification is used to scan inventory and supplies to be sure that everything is outside of the patient following the surgery. This technology is also used to scan barcodes to make sure that information like patient identification, medicine identification and correct procedures are properly scheduled.




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