Surgical Patient Tracking with the Karl Storz OR-Ticket

Abstract

Objective: Patient safety of surgical patients depends on correct identification and tracking in the operating theater. Additionally, surgical resources, presented patient data from the electronic patient chart, and surgical documentation are highly variable depending on the surgical procedure.

Method: We compared the surgical workflow of ENT-surgical patients equipped with a QR-code based OR-Ticket. The ticket provided relevant electronic patient data: name, surname, date of birth, surgical procedure, operative site and side. The time for pre- and postoperative patient tracking and surgical documentation was investigated for 50 exemplary procedures.

Results: The time for the generation of the OR-ticket could be neglected because it was directly printed from the electronic patient documentation system. There were no technical problems with the readout from the OR-ticket. All patients were identified correctly. The time for patient identification was reduced compared with standard procedure. The time for documentation purposes was reduced compared with standard documentation.

Conclusion: The OR-ticket provides the possibility to improve patient safety and ergonomics in the operating theater. Further technical development may provide automatic presentation of relevant patient data in the surgical cockpit and concentrate surgical resources depending on the identified patient and procedure, especially in operating theaters with a high patient turnover.