J u l y 2 0 1 8 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 5 1
The Count Is Off — Now What?
We created a step-by-step poster to resolve
incorrect counts and hung it on every OR wall.
Emily McKisson, MS, BSN, RN, CNOR | Columbus, Ohio
• HUNG WITH PRIDE Emily McKisson, MS, BSN, RN, CNOR, and Chris Marchese,
RN, stand before the poster-size algorithm that outlines everyone's tasks in the
event of an incorrect count. The poster hangs in all 80 ORs at the Ohio State
University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio. Download a free PDF at out-
patientsurgery.net/forms. In Ms. McKisson's right hand is a cottonoid similar to
the one left in a patient during a 2016 neurosurgery.
H
ow
do
you
resol
ve an
incorrect count at
your facility? Whether
it's as simple as a
dropped hemostat
that you didn't hear
hit the floor or as seri-
ous as a missing
sponge that didn't
show up on a foreign
body X-ray, you
would hope that your
surgeons and staff
would follow your
incorrect count policy
to the letter, taking
exactly the right steps
in exactly the right
order whenever the
count is incorrect,
unresolved or unrec-
onciled.
Of course, we know
that's not always the
case. Not all of the