ScanCARE Blog

Transitioning to an Electronic Tracking system often involves importing your existing CSSD Check Sheets and Surgical Devices data, currently maintained in MS Word or Excel. A common challenge is the varied naming of the same type of surgical instruments. 

For instance, Mayo Forceps for example, might be named in several ways:

• 15cm Curved Mayo Forceps
• Mayo Forceps 15cm Curved
• Curved 15cm Mayo Forceps
• Forceps Mayo  Curved 15cm
•  6" Mayo Curved Forcep

Let's explore five tips on establishing a consistent naming convention for surgical instruments to simplify this process.

ScanCARE QuickShots offer a condensed version of our in-depth blog posts, summarising the key takeaways and presenting them in a quick, easy-to-read format. Each QuickShots blog will cover essential information on surgical instrument tracking, sterilization, and management, helping you stay up to date on industry best practices and innovations.

When people ask me about instrument tracking, there are are number of things I need to find out from them so that I get an idea of what they want to track. So I begin by asking them what they would like to track:

The advances in surgical procedures and surgical instrumentation, over the past 10-20 years has been astounding. Once upon a time, just about every surgical procedure was open surgery and involved simple pivot based stainless steel instruments. These days, surgical instruments are highly complex hybrid material devices.

This has led to a quiet revolution in sterilizing departments around the world. Instruments were once simple and tray assembly straightforward.