Radiofrequency Identification Track for Tray Optimization: An Instrument Utilization Pilot Study in Surgical...

Area of Science:

• Surgical Innovation
• Medical Device Technology
• Healthcare Operations

Background:

• Traditional surgical instrument tray reduction relies on imprecise methods like manual observation and recall.
• These methods are limited, leading to inefficiencies and increased processing costs in surgical settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the feasibility of using radiofrequency identification (RFID) for tracking surgical instruments.
• To assess RFID's effectiveness as a method for reducing surgical instrument trays.

Main Methods:

• Surgical instrument trays were equipped with unique RFID tags.
• RFID readers tracked instruments during 15 breast operations, with concurrent ethnographic observation.
• Instruments not recorded as used were eliminated, and tray reduction effectiveness was evaluated in subsequent cases.

Main Results:

• RFID tracking demonstrated near-perfect agreement with ethnographic data (Cohen's Kappa = 0.82).
• Surgical trays were reduced by 40% without compromising instrument availability in subsequent cases.
• The odds of instrument use did not significantly change between cases after reduction.

Conclusions:

• Intraoperative RFID instrument tracking is a feasible and data-driven approach for surgical tray reduction.
• RFID tracking offers a scalable, systematic, and efficient solution for optimizing surgical instrument supply.