An estimated one of every 8,000 general surgeries results in one of the most common and preventable surgical errors — retained sponges — a solution to which was co-invented by the president and CEO of Patient Safety Technologies, Brian E. Stewart.
“Before and after every surgical procedure, all surgical articles used, including sponges, are counted to make sure that they are not unintentionally left inside the body,” Stewart said. “Our [Safety-Sponge System] tracks sponges, the most difficult and problematic articles to account for, down to the individual level by adhering a simple, unique identifier to each one. Used in conjunction with a small handheld scanner, we call it the SurgiCounter, the system allows for more accurate counts prior to the patient being closed.”
To date, the Safety-Sponge System has been used in more than 1.5 million procedures using more than 36 million Safety Sponges, Stewart says. The number of surgical opportunities to use the sponge is about 32 million per year in the U.S. and twice that internationally.
“With our current customer base, we are currently a little over 1% penetrated into that procedure base,” Stewart said. “With an average revenue per procedure of $12 to $15, depending on the institution and the type of procedures that they do, that implies an immediate market opportunity of approximately $450 million.”
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