2012

KKH's Surgical Counting and Operating Theatre Tracking (SCOTT) system

KKH earns the "Most Innovative Use of Infocomm Technology (Public Sector)" to eliminate the risk of items accidentally left in a patient, providing a significant enhancement to patient safety. KKH's Surgical Counting and Operating Theatre Tracking (SCOTT) system was piloted to electronically locate and identify every gauze and instrument used during a surgical procedure, eliminating the risk of retained surgical instruments, gauzes or any other sterile consumables in a patient's body after surgery.

The SCOTT system uses radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to locate RFID tagged surgical gauzes and instruments within the operating theatre. These enable the scrub team to keep track of the number of gauzes and instruments moving in and out of the operative field, enhancing patient safety through minimising human counting error.