Zero Harm-Retained Surgical Items
St. Mark's Hospital
1200 East 3900 South
Millcreek, UT 84124
Wednesday, October 15, 2025 at 6:00pm MT - 8:00pm MT
Add this event to your calendar
Info
Topic
RSI prevention
Additional Information
Operating rooms are hectic by nature. Staff workload is high and interruptions are incessant. The manual sponge counting process is cumbersome.
Distraction, multi-tasking, and time pressure can result in discrepant or false correct counts, eventually leading a retained surgical sponge.
It's estimated that 11 patients every day are sutured up with a surgical sponge still inside them.1
It can take 10 or more minutes to find a missing sponge.2
False correct counts are the cause of 62-88% of RSS.3
Surgical sponges are the #1 retained surgical item.4