NoThing Left Behind®: A National Surgical Patient-Safety Project to Prevent Retained Surgical Items
Zooming in on Zero Retained Surgical Sponges
The prevention of retained surgical sponges requires good communication among perioperative personnel and the consistent application of standardized processes of care. Review of individual cases, focused reviews and root cause analyses from multiple sources have revealed that operating rooms run into trouble in compliance with the “consistent application” and with the development of “standardized” processes of care applicable to all stakeholders.
Most hospitals have a surgical count policy which directs behavior of the staff nurses and scrub technicians yet have no policies which direct behavior of surgeons, anesthesiologists and radiologists – other important
perioperative personnel. Additionally the practices outlined within existing count policies are often not standardized and uniformly practiced throughout all the operating rooms even though they comply with the recommended practices of the AORN. It is often the case that everybody has "my" way of doing things but there is no standardized way. This state of affairs allows for much individual and service-specific variation. A MultiStakeholder Prevention of Retained Surgical Items Policy has now been written and is available here.
The most common retained surgical item that requires a second operation to remove, is a surgical cotton gauze sponge, used during the course of an operation to soak up body fluids or help maintain the surgical field. All surgical sponges used in the US contain a radiopaque marker which distinguishes them from cotton gauze dressings which don't contain markers and are used to cover the wound. The three main “stakeholders” in preventing retained sponges are surgeons, nurses and radiologists and communication between all three is a key element. There should be an alliance between the surgeon - whose responsibility it is to remove all surgical items not intended to remain, and the surgical nurses - who are responsible for corroborating or refuting the surgeons assessment that everything has been removed. Preventing retention is a joint and shared responsibility.
CORRECT COUNT RETENTION CASES
To date, most OR’s have placed undue reliance on the surgical count to the exclusion of other actions to prevent unintentional retention. Error rates with current manual counting practices are ~10-15% and in over 80% of retained sponge cases the count has been falsely called "correct". We characterize these cases as correct count retention cases. That is the sponges were counted but there was an error(s), such that at the end of the case the counts were called "correct" but a sponge was still in the patient. The retained sponge is usually discovered hours, days, months or years later and are always a surprise. These cases are the result of problems with the practice of counting. Manual counting practices are tried and true but they are not standardized and as currently practiced in most ORs they are not conducted in a way that there is a transparent or visible verification process.
INCORRECT COUNT RETENTION CASES
In 20% of retained sponge cases the patient has left the OR with a known incorrect count. That is it was known that something was missing but the item was never found. These cases are usually the result of problems with communication and knowledge. The practices worked because the team knows there is a missing sponge but the actions taken to find the sponge are incomplete or inadequate. Problems with communication between surgeons and nurses, misinterpretation of xrays, incomplete xray examinations, and insufficient wound examinations often reflect a lack of knowledge about what is the best course of action under the circumstances.
We suggest that we have been asking the wrong question: Instead of saying What's the count? - we should be asking Where are the sponges? To answer this question, we have designed and studied a system we call “Sponge ACCOUNTing” which is a transparent, systemized, standardized, inexpensive, simple manual practice for accounting for surgical sponges. The system requires the use of blue-backed plastic hanging sponge holders as a adjunct to the performance of surgical counts and has visible verification steps that provide greater certainty about the number of sponges used during a case and proves that those sponges are all in one place at the end of the case.
The goal of this project has been to help hospitals get to zero retained sponges for at least one year to eliminate the problem of retained surgical sponges in all ORs, labor and delivery rooms and radiology suites….. any place that surgical sponges are used and an incision is made, which are the minimal conditions for the possibility that a sponge can be left in a patient. The goal is zero which means that all members of the perioperative care team must work together to insure that no patient leaves the OR with a surgical sponge unknowingly left inside of them, no new mother goes home with a vaginal sponge inside of her and no radiologist misses a radiographic sponge on an xray.
RETAINED VAGINAL SPONGES AND PACKS
The third most common site for retained sponges in the vagina. In the past, these events were frequently not reported but retained vaginal sponges and packs are being increasingly recognized as a problem. These cases usually occur after delivery. The retained sponge can either be a sponge (usually a raytex 4x4) used during the delivery or a forgotten vaginal pack that was not removed before the new mother was discharged. Women return to the ER or office with fever, pain and discharge. In many L&D areas routine sponge counting has not been the usual practice. This should change and L&D areas should adopt the same
practice of accounting for sponges that is used in the OR. The Minnesota Hospital Association addressed this problem and developed "a roadmap" for preventing retained vaginal sponges. We have drafted some recommended practices for Sponge ACCOUNTing in L&D areas. A L&D audit tool is attached which can be used to monitor implementation and understanding of the practice change. There are also practice recommendations for when a vaginal pack is used. A vaginal pack is considered a dressing so orders for pack management become part of the handoff. These practices include actions to be taken by all stakeholders, the obstetrician, the nurse and ........ if a vaginal pack used in the postpartum setting ....... the new mother!
