Management and Detection System for Medical Surgical Equipment

TL;DR

This paper presents a cyber-physical system designed to reduce the incidence of retained surgical bodies, thereby enhancing patient safety and reducing legal risks for hospitals.

Contribution

It details the engineering process for designing, simulating, verifying, and validating a novel system to prevent RSB in surgical procedures.

Findings

System significantly decreases RSB incidence

Improves patient survivability rates

Potential to reduce medical negligence lawsuits

Abstract

Retained surgical bodies (RSB) are any foreign bodies left inside the patient after a medical procedure. RSB is often caused by human mistakes or miscommunication between medical staff during the procedure. Infection, medical complications, and even death are possible consequences of RSB, and it is a significant risk for patients, hospitals, and surgical staff. In this paper. we describe the engineering process we have done to explore the design space, define a feasible solution, and simulate, verify, and validate a state-of-the-art Cyber-Physical System that can significantly decrease the incidence of RSB and thus increase patients' survivability rate. This system might save patients' suffering and lives and reduce medical staff negligence lawsuits while improving the hospital's reputation. The paper illustrates each step of the process with examples and describes the chosen solution in detail.