PITTSBURGH, Nov 01, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — ClearCount Medical Solutions, a leader in patient safety solutions, announced today that it has received approval to affix the CE mark to its SmartSponge and SmartWand-DTX products. The SmartSponge product line is the first and only RFID-based surgical safety and efficiency technology bearing a CE mark.

The European Union requires companies to comply with the Medical Devices Directive (MDD) in order to sell medical devices in its 27 member countries. The CE mark is evidence that ClearCount and its product offerings meet the quality and other requirements of these directives. The Company is currently pursuing commercial partners to assist in European distribution.

“We have established a perfect safety record over the past two years in the United States. Our hospital customers have never experienced a retained surgical sponge while using our technology,” said David Palmer, chief executive officer of ClearCount. “CE mark approval of our SmartSponge(R) System and SmartWand-DTX(TM) represents a significant achievement and major milestone for our Company.”

ClearCount’s SmartSponge System is a Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) based platform, providing a comprehensive solution that both verifies sponge counts and detects sponges if they remain in the patient. The system is able to provide a double layer of protection because it uniquely identifies each sponge used during surgery. To date, this counting and detection approach has made retained sponges a true “Never Event” in all operating rooms where ClearCount’s technology has been implemented.

Using manual procedures, retained surgical items are estimated to occur in one of every 1,500 open abdominal / chest procedures, leading to additional surgeries, unnecessary costs, serious infections and even death. In 2010, retained surgical items were the leading Sentinel Event reported to the Joint Commission, which accredits hospitals in the United States. It is also a global problem, though data on these adverse events is not always made public. However, in one example where the data is public, the United Kingdom reported nearly 800 missing or retained surgical swabs or instruments in a single year.(1).

ClearCount will be exhibiting its latest technology at Medica 2011, in Dusseldorf, Germany, November 16-19 in Hall 16,Stand G-05. For more information, please visit www.clearcount.com .

About ClearCount Medical Solutions

ClearCount Medical Solutions is a medical device company focused on patient safety solutions. ClearCount has assembled an extendable RFID-based platform that provides a comprehensive solution to improve efficiency while preventing medical errors. ClearCount Medical Solutions has been recognized with a Popular Science 2009 Best of What’s New Award, and has received additional recognition from TIME and WIRED magazines, the 2009 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award, the International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) and more. ClearCount’s SmartSponge and SmartWand-DTX systems are the first RFID enabled systems for counting and detecting surgical sponges, thereby improving patient and OR safety, enhancing productivity, and reducing cost. To learn more, visit www.clearcount.com .

MUNDELEIN, IL, Oct 25, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Medline Industries, Inc., the nation’s largest privately held manufacturer and distributor of healthcare supplies, announced today the signing of a three-year national agreement with Premier Purchasing Partners — the group purchasing unit of the Premier healthcare alliance — for surgical sponge detection systems, which includes ClearCount technology. The agreement, now in effect, ensures that Premier’s 2,500 hospital member facilities and 77,000 other healthcare sites have contractual access to the most comprehensive technology available for the prevention of retained surgical sponge incidents.

“We’re very pleased to have been chosen for this contract award based on our shared values of providing great patient care while reducing overall healthcare costs,” said Jack Bowser, Jr., Medline’s president, Primary Care Division. “ClearCount’s innovative ‘count and detect’ RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology provides Premier members with an effective way to improve both patient safety and operating room efficiency.”

The SmartSponge System uniquely identifies each sponge in an operating room so that they can be both easily counted and detected during surgery. To date this dual approach has made retained sponges a true “Never Event” in all operating rooms where ClearCount has been implemented and has made it the fastest growing technology solution in this space.

Despite designation as a “Never Event” by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), retained surgical items are estimated to occur in one of every 1,500 open abdominal/chest procedures, which can lead to hospital inefficiencies, unnecessary costs, serious infections, and even death. In 2010, retained surgical incidents became the leading Sentinel Event reported to the Joint Commission.

In one study using a retrospective review of medical malpractice claims data from a statewide insurer in Massachusetts, sponge counts had been falsely thought to be correct in 76 percent of non-vaginal surgical cases involving retained sponges. “Falsely correct” sponge counts were attributed to team fatigue, difficult or long operations, sponges sticking together, shift changes or procedures with a large number of sponges. In July 2010, new Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) Recommended Practices for the Prevention of Retained Surgical Items highlighted that membership may consider use of adjunct technologies to enhance surgical count procedures in order to avoid retained incidents.

For more information, please visit www.medline.com .

About Premier Healthcare Alliance,

Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Recipient Premier is a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,500 U.S. hospitals and 77,000-plus other healthcare sites using the power of collaboration to lead the transformation to high quality, cost-effective care. Owned by hospitals, health systems and other providers, Premier maintains the nation’s most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes information and operates a leading healthcare purchasing network. A world leader in helping deliver measurable improvements in care, Premier has worked with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the United Kingdom’s National Health Service North West to improve hospital performance. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has an office in Washington.

About Medline Industries, Inc.

Medline, the nation’s largest privately held manufacturer and distributor of healthcare products, manufactures and distributes more than 125,000 products to hospitals, extended-care facilities, surgery centers, home care dealers and agencies. Headquartered in Mundelein, Ill, Medline has more than 1,100 dedicated sales representatives worldwide to support its broad product line and cost management services.

Over the past five years, Medline has been the fastest-growing distributor of medical and surgical supplies in the United States, serving as the primary distributor to more than 450 major hospitals and healthcare systems. As a leading distributor, Medline offers a comprehensive array of consulting and management services encompassing the supply chain and logistics, as well as clinical programs and education to improve patient outcomes.

X-rays and manual counting are the methods used today for keeping track of surgical sponges during surgery. But the retained surgical sponge is an error that occurs over 4,000 times annually in the United States.

A Pittsburgh startup company founded by graduates of Carnegie Mellon University is reducing that risk in the operating room. How?

By offering a technology that counts and detects surgical sponges, similar to a bar code on your grocery store items.

The company is called ClearCount Medical Solutions. Its first product line patented and cleared by the FDA is the SmartSponge System, which uses radiofrequency identification (RFID) technology to improve safety and efficiency in healthcare.

Growing up in Pittsburgh, ClearCount co-founder Steve Fleck was well aware of CMU’s reputation as a prestigious university.

When the entrepreneurial urge overcame him, he decided the university’s MBA program was a perfect fit.

“The school is known for its strong quantitative program, which was great for me. And the entrepreneurship curriculum was great for honing the skills you need to start your own business.”

Fleck says he had a number of professors at the Tepper School who made a lasting impact.

“Without a doubt, it was definitely the relationships formed outside of class that made all the difference. By far, the best example of this is my relationship with Professor Art Boni,” he explained.

“Art was truly integral to the early success of ClearCount through his mentoring and support. It was incredible as a first-time entrepreneur to have someone with Art’s experience in my corner,” he added.

“Even today after all I’ve learned and experienced through the years at ClearCount, I still consider Art a great mentor and a friend.”

Around ClearCount’s second year of operations, Fleck met CMU alum David Palmer in his role as Chief Operating Officer at the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse (PLSG).

ClearCount had received funding from PLSG. When conversations stirred about ramping up operations and bringing additional talent on board, Palmer was the first person they thought of.

“I felt the company had a great product and great people associated with it,” said Palmer.

Fleck and Palmer both have strong family ties to Pittsburgh. Turns out they grew up less than a mile apart and shared a number of mutual acquaintances.

“For me, the close ties to CMU and early support I received from the university were great reasons to stay in Pittsburgh ,” Fleck said. “There are literally dozens of other organizations that fund and support early-stage business in Pittsburgh, making it one of the best places in the country to start a company. Additionally, we have two of the top universities in the country which provide all sorts of opportunities for research and collaboration.”

Palmer puts it a little differently.

“When people from outside of Pittsburgh ask me ‘Why would you want to start a company in Pittsburgh,’ I always answer, ‘Why wouldn’t you want to start a company in Pittsburgh?’”

By Tom Inglesby

Patient safety event-reporting systems are found in all hospitals and are a mainstay of efforts to detect potentially critical events and quality problems. Initial reports usually come from the personnel directly involved in an event or the actions leading up to it, such as the nurse or physician caring for a patient when an error occurred, rather than management or patient safety professionals.

On January 19, 2009, regulations implementing the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act became effective. The legislation provides confidentiality and privilege protections for patient safety information when healthcare providers work with new expert entities known as Patient Safety Organizations (PSOs). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has also launched a multi-year effort to develop common definitions and reporting formats for patient safety events in order to facilitate aggregation of patient safety information.

Obviously, training and education in what constitutes an incident and when and how to report incidents is necessary, and many organizations within and associated with the hospital community are providing these courses. For example, the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) has recently released the AORN Retained Surgical Items Confidence-Based Learning Module¹ (CBL). The CBL training is designed to determine what each learner knows about preventing retained surgical items (RSIs) and their level of confidence in their knowledge.

Preventing retained surgical items is a key patient safety focus in the perioperative setting because any surgical item left in a patient, whether it’s a sponge, instrument fragment, or other surgical item, can lead to complications with the patient’s recovery. The development of the CBL was made possible by an educational grant from Medline Industries, Inc. and ClearCount Medical Solutions, Inc., to the AORN Foundation.

Preventing incidents ranks higher than reporting, and ClearCount is focused on that in the operating room (OR). Bartlesville, Oklahoma’s Jane Phillips Medical Center (JPMC) has implemented ClearCount’s SmartWand-DTX radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to prevent retained surgical sponge incidents. ClearCount’s RFID-based platform uniquely counts and detects all surgical sponges used during hospital procedures. “We take our commitment to improving patient safety very seriously,” said Scott E. Williams, DO, chief of surgery. “As a surgeon, I appreciate the additional reassurance that comes from using the most up-to-date, sophisticated technology to increase patient safety.”

JPMC worked closely with ClearCount and their distributor, Medline, to implement the SmartWand-DTX in all operating rooms, replacing a more limited system that did not provide unique identification of detected sponges nor provide electronic verification of the sponge counting process. ClearCount is active in improving the automatic reporting of RSI incidents in this way.

The Cleveland VA Medical Center, among the five largest VA hospitals in the country, has also implemented ClearCount’s SmartSponge System. The Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center serves almost 100,000 veterans each year—an increase of 140% over the last decade. Team members, including both hospital and risk management staff, conducted a review evaluating a variety of different technologies designed to minimize the risk of a sponge being left inside a patient during surgery. To date this approach has made retained sponges a true Never Event in all operating rooms where ClearCount has been implemented.

Steven Fleck, cofounder and chief technology officer at ClearCount, notes, “I think in general there’s a trend to be more connective and to have wireless access to information. Sponge counts and the types of data we collect generally needs a periodic review so that a nurse manager can oversee what’s going on. In a typical hospital, they may have our system implemented in 15 different ORs, so a nurse manager would, maybe once a month, review those reports and see there’s maybe a room or a particular staff member that has an unusually high number of events such as unreconciled counts. That’s what our system allows you to do.”

By preventing RSIs and alerting OR personnel immediately if a sponge is missing, then providing easy reporting methods for the growing number of entities that require them, ClearCount Medical Solutions is paying attention to patient safety in the OR.

Tom Inglesby is an author based in Southern California who has covered automatic identification since the early 1980s.

¹ www.aorn.org/Education/ConfidenceBasedLearning/RetainedSurgicalItems/

First hospital in Northeast Ohio to launch this cutting-edge technology to protect
against retained surgical sponges

Cleveland, OH. June 7, 2011 – ClearCount Medical Solutions, a leader in patient safety solutions, announced today that Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center is the first hospital in Northeast Ohio to implement the most comprehensive technology for the prevention of retained surgical sponge incidents.

The Cleveland VA Medical Center, among the five largest VA hospitals in the country, has implemented ClearCount’s SmartSponge System, a Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) based platform that uniquely identifies each sponge in an operating room so that they can be easily counted and detected. Medline is the exclusive distributor of the SmartSponge System and SmartWand-DTX™, the first FDA-cleared systems using RFID technology.

Team members, including both hospital and risk management staff at the Cleveland VA, conducted a rigorous review process, evaluating a variety of different technologies designed to minimize the risk of a sponge being left inside a patient during surgery. Ultimately, the team chose ClearCount as a comprehensive solution that both verifies sponge counts and detects sponges if they remain in the patient. To date this dual approach has made retained sponges a true ‘Never Event’ in all operating rooms where ClearCount has been implemented.

“The Cleveland VA provides great care and has the opportunity to implement new technologies and innovations,” says Susan Fuehrer, Medical Center Director of the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center. “It’s our duty to provide the very best care that we can, and I’d like to think Cleveland is the best of the best.”

The Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center serves almost 100,000 Veterans each year — an increase of 140% over the last decade. Since Q1 2011, the Cleveland VA has implemented ClearCount across their entire suite of operating rooms.

“We’re pleased to see Cleveland VA taking a leadership role in patient safety in Northeast Ohio,” said David Palmer, chief executive officer of ClearCount. “Hospitals all over the country are beginning to leverage RFID technology to make retained sponge incidents a true ‘Never Event’. We’re confident that ClearCount can help – that is why we back our technology with a $2M Never Event Warranty.”

Despite designation as a “Never Event”, retained items are estimated to occur in one of every 1,500 open abdominal/chest procedures, which can lead to hospital inefficiencies, unnecessary costs, serious infections, and even death.

For more information, please visit www.clearcount.com or www.medline.com.

About ClearCount Medical Solutions
ClearCount Medical Solutions is a medical device company focused on patient safety solutions. ClearCount has assembled an extendable RFID-based platform that provides a comprehensive solution to improve efficiency while preventing medical errors. ClearCount Medical Solutions has been recognized with a Popular Science 2009 Best of What’s New Award, and has received additional recognition from TIME and WIRED magazines, the 2009 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award, the International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) and more. ClearCount’s SmartSponge and SmartWand-DTX systems are the first RFID enabled systems for counting and detecting surgical sponges, thereby improving patient and OR safety, enhancing productivity, and reducing cost. To learn more, visit www.clearcount.com.

About Medline Industries, Inc.
Medline, the nation’s largest privately held manufacturer and distributor of healthcare products, manufactures and distributes more than 100,000 products to hospitals, extended-care facilities, surgery centers, home care dealers and agencies. Headquartered in Mundelein, Ill, Medline has more than 800 dedicated sales representatives nationwide to support its broad product line and cost management services.
Over the past five years, Medline has been the fastest-growing distributor of medical and surgical supplies in the U.S., serving as the primary distributor to over 450 major hospitals and healthcare systems. As a leading distributor, Medline offers a comprehensive array of consulting and management services encompassing the supply chain and logistics, utilization and standardization, business tools and enhanced reporting capabilities and on-staff clinicians.

Eindhoven, Netherlands and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 4, 2011– NXP Semiconductors (NASDAQ: NXPI), the RFID leader for multi-applications, announced that ClearCount Medical Solutions has selected NXP RFID solutions to enable its SmartSponge® System. The SmartSponge System can easily and accurately detect and account for surgical sponges placed in a patient’s body when undergoing surgery, so that no items are “left behind,” thus improving patient safety.

The SmartSponge System is comprised of RFID-enabled surgical sponges; an embedded RFID reader within a user-friendly automated software accounting system; an accompanying SmartWand to detect sponges accidently retained within the body; and a smart disposal system to account for discarded sponges.

David Palmer, CEO of ClearCount, said: “Our SmartWand-DTX and SmartSponge System, the first Food and Drug Administration-cleared RFID-based platform for the operating room, can help save patients from serious complications that can arise when surgical sponges are left behind. Our solutions also provide renewed confidence – for doctors, hospitals and insurance agencies – that they are providing the highest level of patient safety.”

The incidence of retained foreign objects (RFOs) in surgical patients is difficult to estimate, partly because they can remain in the body undetected for years. A 2008 study published in The Journal of the American College of Surgeons reported that foreign objects were left behind in 1 out of every 5,500 surgical procedures. In abdominal surgeries, retained foreign objects are estimated to occur in one out of every 1,000 to 1,500 surgical procedures.

Surgical sponges are widely reported to be the most common RFO, because they can be difficult to visually detect once they are saturated in blood. A landmark article in The New England Journal of Medicine reported that sponges accounted for 69 percent of the retained foreign objects studied. Further, even when counts of sponges and other surgical instruments had been performed, 88 percent of cases involved a final count that had been falsely thought to be correct. In complex, time-critical operations, especially where multiple surgeons are involved, the possibility of retained foreign surgical devices within the patient is unfortunately a reality, and the results can be life-threatening.

Victor Vega, RFID marketing director, NXP Semiconductors, said: “Surgical sponges could be counted manually or with the assistance of a barcode reader, but neither of these methods is able to identify any blood-soaked sponges that are hidden in the body. NXP’s RFID-based system enhances accountability with a unique read before, during and after the surgery, which dramatically improves accuracy as well as patient safety.”

Each surgical SmartSponge is uniquely identifiable with a serial number that can be acquired wirelessly, even if accidently left within the body, by waving the SmartWand over the patient. RFID-enabled SmartSponges are packaged in pre-defined quantities. As the package is waved over an RFID reader, the unique serial numbers of the SmartSponges are read and the system ensures a match with the pre-determined package count. A SmartBucket™ configured with an RFID reader enables the ClearCount system to directly account for and reconcile all sponges entering into and exiting the sterile field. As final assurance, the SmartWand is used to scan the patient to ensure no sponges are left inside of the patient.

Further information, a demo and samples of the SmartSponge System will be available at the NXP booth 204 at RFID Journal LIVE! 2011 in Orlando, Florida, April 12 to 14. For a video of the SmartSponge System, visit http://youtu.be/EYZeydOGSLI

About ClearCount Medical Solutions

ClearCount Medical Solutions is a medical device company focused on patient safety solutions. ClearCount has assembled an extendable RFID-based platform that provides a comprehensive solution to improve efficiency while preventing medical errors. ClearCount Medical Solutions has been recognized with a Popular Science 2009 Best of What’s New Award, and has received additional recognition from TIME and WIRED magazines, the 2009 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award, the International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) and more. ClearCount’s SmartSponge and SmartWand-DTX systems are the first RFID enabled systems for counting and detecting surgical sponges, thereby improving patient and OR safety, enhancing productivity, and reducing cost. To learn more, visit www.clearcount.com.

About NXP Semiconductors

NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) provides High Performance Mixed Signal and Standard Product solutions that leverage its leading RF, Analog, Power Management, Interface, Security and Digital Processing expertise. These innovations are used in a wide range of automotive, identification, wireless infrastructure, lighting, industrial, mobile, consumer and computing applications. A global semiconductor company with operations in more than 30 countries, NXP posted revenue of $4.4 billion in 2010. For more information visit www.nxp.com.

Less apparent is the burgeoning success of smaller health care-related businesses in the region. Individually, only a few of the more established have familiar names such as Respironics or Medrad. Collectively, these businesses could represent a major potential for growth.

Since 2002, more than 100 life sciences companies — those in the business of making and marketing medical devices, pharmaceuticals or involved in other biotechnology ventures — have announced plans to add more than 5,000 jobs locally, according to the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance.

“They are a major factor, if something of a quiet industry. But there are some amazing things going on that people are not aware of,” said Brian Kennedy, vice president of government relations for the Pittsburgh Technology Council.

He cites Zoll Medical (http://lifevest.zoll.com/) in O’Hara, which makes a vest, called LifeVest, that comes equipped with a defibrillator that can prevent sudden cardiac death. It reported a doubling of its profits last year with $70.7 million in revenue. The company, which employs about 225 people locally, anticipates an additional 60 percent growth this year and plans to move to larger facilities in RIDC Park.

Another is Knopp Neurosciences (http://www.knoppneurosciences.com/) on the South Side, which last year signed an $80 million licensing agreement with Biogen Idec to market a drug to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. In October, the company announced it had formed a new parent entity, Knopp Biosciences LLC, to signal its plans to become a more broadly integrated biopharmaceutical company.

Yet another is Precision Therapeutics Inc. (http://www.precisiontherapeutics.com/), also of the South Side, which develops technology to help physicians decide the best treatment for individual cancer patients. In 2008, it received $43 million in venture capital funding as it develops a diagnostic test for that purpose.

The sector “is small in terms of number of jobs,” said Harold D. Miller, president of Future Strategies LLC, a Downtown management and policy consulting firm, “but I think it’s a higher-wage sector and, in terms of the potential job growth, it’s certainly above average, particularly as we try to move toward a better technological solution to health care.”

The community doesn’t hear much about these companies, Mr. Kennedy said, because “a lot of companies are in the very early stages and they don’t want to publicize what they are working on or what gives them a competitive edge.”

“Once they start hitting it big, that all changes,” he said.

Hitting it big is the goal, as Respironics in Murrysville (http://www.healthcare.philips.com/main/homehealth/respironics.wpd) did when it was acquired by Royal Philips Electronics in 2007 for $5.2 billion. About the same time, Marshall-based Renal Solutions Inc. (http://www.renalsolutionsinc.com/) was sold to the German firm Fresenius Medical Care for about $200 million.

So, who’s going to be the next Respironics or Renal Solutions?

There’s a good chance it will be someone John Manzetti knows.

Mr. Manzetti is CEO of the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, which has been helping life sciences companies get off the ground since 2003. This is a greenhouse that has borne many fruits, starting with Renal Solutions.

One blossoming now is ClearCount Medical Solutions (http://clearcount.com/), a Ross business that uses radio frequency chips to locate and count sponges and towels used in surgery, so none are left behind when the patient is sewn back up.

ClearCount CEO David Palmer, formerly chief operating officer at Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, said ClearCount had seen a fourfold increase in sales between 2009 and 2010, “and we look to double them again in the coming year.”

The life sciences greenhouse currently has 138 investments totaling $16.6 million in 61 companies, which in turn has leveraged nearly $500 million in additional capital. Mr. Manzetti said historically it takes five to seven years before the startups they invest in can stand on their own and, since the recession began, that has lengthened to seven to 10 years.

But there are some exciting possibilities in the pipeline. Cardiorobotics, a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, is developing snake robot technology for use in surgeries. Its most promising project, cardioARM, is currently in clinical trials in Germany.

He mentioned two others in clinical trials — Cohera Medical (http://www.coheramedical.com/) on the North Shore, which landed $16.1 million in financing in 2008 for its work developing the surgical adhesive TissuGlu, and ALung (http://www.alung.com/) on the South Side, which has developed a respiratory dialysis machine that may keep patients off ventilators.

ALung received $14 million from Shadyside capital venture firm Eagle Ventures Inc. last year and was listed as one of the best new medical technologies of 2010 by medGadget, an Internet journal covering emerging medical technologies.

Marshall-based Medrad (http://www.medrad.com), now a part of Bayer, sells vascular injection systems and other medical technologies now used in nearly every U.S. hospital. It recently won its second Malcolm Baldridge Award, bestowed by the U.S. Department of Commerce, for excellence in manufacturing. Medrad is one of only five companies nationwide to win it twice.

Gary Bucciarelli, Medrad’s senior vice president for emerging business, said the company uses the rigorous Baldridge evaluation process to make itself better. “It’s about continuous improvement.”

Another factor in their favor, company officials say, is a sense of cooperation. “There is a bond among the smaller companies and it’s a very tight-knit network here in Pittsburgh,” said Mr. Palmer. “I think everyone tries to help one another when they can.”

“These companies feed off each other,” said Mr. Manzetti.

“In many regards, Pittsburgh is already recognized as a center of excellence in life sciences,” said Mr. Kennedy.

“We’re not having any problem getting active investors to come in and look at companies,” he said. “We are a magnet for the type of talent that companies need to grow.”

Medline and ClearCount Provide Education Grant to Enhance Patient Safety

Mundelein, Ill., March 16, 2011 – The Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) has recently released the AORN Retained Surgical Items Confidence-Based Learning Module (CBL) based on the association’s current Recommended Practices for Prevention of Retained Surgical Items (RSIs). The CBL training is designed to determine what each learner knows about preventing RSIs and their level of confidence in their knowledge.

Preventing retained surgical items is a key patient safety focus in the perioperative setting because any surgical item left in a patient, whether it’s a sponge, towel, instrument fragment or other surgical item, can lead to complications with the patient’s recovery. The successful prevention of retained surgical items requires the knowledge and coordination of every member of the perioperative team.

The development of the CBL was made possible by an educational grant from Medline Industries, Inc. and ClearCount Medical Solutions, Inc. to AORN Foundation. In addition, the companies will fund free access to the module for the first 500 registrants.

“This new RSI Confidence-Based Learning module will help perioperative nurses understand the aspects of counting and the use of adjunct technology to account for soft goods, sharps and instruments,” explained Susan Bakewell, MS, RN-BC, AORN director of perioperative education.

The RSI learning module is designed for directors, managers, educators, staff nurses and other personnel working in traditional operating rooms, ambulatory surgery centers, physicians’ offices, cardiac catheterization laboratories, endoscopy suites, radiology departments and other areas where surgery and other invasive procedures are performed.

Both AORN and ClearCount will demonstrate the new module at the 58^th Annual AORN Congress, March 21-23 in Philadelphia, PA. Registration for the training will begin on Monday, March 28^th and is available at www.aorn.org/cbl.

About ClearCount Medical Solutions

ClearCount Medical Solutions is a medical device company focused on patient safety solutions. ClearCount has assembled an extendable RFID-based platform that provides a comprehensive solution to improve efficiency while preventing medical errors.  ClearCount Medical Solutions has been recognized with a Popular Science 2009 Best of What’s New Award, and has received additional recognition from TIME and WIRED magazines, the 2009 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award, the International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) and more. ClearCount’s SmartSponge and SmartWand-DTX systems are the first RFID enabled systems for counting and detecting surgical sponges, thereby improving patient and OR safety, enhancing productivity, and reducing cost.  To learn more, visit www.clearcount.com.

About Medline Industries, Inc.

Medline, the nation’s largest privately held manufacturer and distributor of healthcare products, manufactures and distributes more than 100,000 products to hospitals, extended-care facilities, surgery centers, home care dealers and agencies. Headquartered in Mundelein, Ill., Medline has more than 900 dedicated sales representatives nationwide to support its broad product line and cost management services.