Sponge, Laparotomy, 8"X36", Master Tag, Strl

The Safety-Sponge® line of disposable products includes a full line of x-ray detectable gauze sponges, laps and towels of numerous shapes, sizes and ply's. Permanently fused to each Safety-Sponge® is a barcode label that can be easily read by a SurgiCounter™ despite the presence of blood or other body fluids. Each barcode represents an individually unique code assigned to that specific Safety-Sponge® and no other, even of the same type. When used with the SurgiCounter& #153;, the system prevents any one Safety-Sponge® from being inadvertently counted "IN" or "OUT" more than once, hence addressing the underlying cause of most retained sponge cases, a manual count thought to be "correct" which is not. The system can tell surgical staff not just if one or more Safety-Sponges® are missing, but also exactly which individual Safety-Sponges® are still unaccounted for. This helps prevents the very real clinical scenario of finding "a" sponge but not knowing if it is "the" missing sponge... which still may be in the patient.