Despite their sophistication, most current technologies still leave the critical tasks of the OR — including counting, documentation, and workflow coordination — manual and disconnected. Meanwhile, hospitals face skyrocketing operational expenses, with the OR being one of the most cost-intensive and waste-producing areas in the entire system: Operating Rooms account for 38% of total hospital expenditures and 73% of hospital waste They generate 68% of hospital revenue, yet remain one of the least optimized environments According to the American College of Healthcare Executives, rising staffing and supply costs are the #2 top concern among hospital CEOs, second only to workforce shortages In this context, existing technologies fall short — they fail to address the true scale, complexity, or urgency of OR inefficiencies. Some hospitals have adopted barcode systems, RFID tracking, or AI-powered inventory tools in an effort to modernize perioperative operations. However, these tools focus narrowly on inventory logistics and static asset tracking, not on dynamic, real-time surgical workflows. The Problem: ❌ Do not track surgical item use in real time ❌ Require manual scanning ❌ Fail to reduce RN workload ❌ Don’t integrate across the full perioperative process

Surgical teams frequently prepare far more instruments and disposables than necessary. Studies show that 55–78% of surgical instruments opened are never used — yet they still must be sterilized, counted, and reprocessed after every case. This over-preparation adds: ⏱️ Extra work for RNs during setup and breakdown 💸 Unnecessary reprocessing and sterilization costs 📦 Massive supply chain waste across hundreds of procedures weekly Hospitals lack validated, real-time data to standardize surgical kits by specialty or surgeon preference. Surgeons often resist change without clear evidence. The result? Wasted materials, excessive labor, and unrecoverable costs — all before the procedure even begins.

In today’s operating rooms, nurses are still required to manually count every surgical instrument and disposable item — a time-consuming, risk-prone, and mentally exhausting task. Studies show it takes 8 minutes to count 50 items, and most procedures involve hundreds. This results in a total burden of 20 to 80 minutes per case, depending on surgical complexity. The process is repeated at three stages: ➤ Before incision ➤ Intraoperatively ➤ At closure 🔹 Discrepancies and Recounts Disrupt Workflow Counting discrepancies occur in 12.5% of surgeries Even when not formally reported, RN recounts add 7 to 32 minutes (average: 20 minutes) to the procedure According to CHPSO, 45% of facilities with near-miss events had never reported them — indicating systemic underreporting 🔹 A Critical Task That’s Fragile, Repetitive, and Draining While vital for patient safety, manual counting is: Repetitive and mentally taxing for nursing staff Highly vulnerable to fatigue, distractions, and pressure Still frequently inaccurate 🔹 Retained Surgical Items (RSIs): A Serious Clinical and Financial Risk In approximately 0.5% of surgeries, errors result in a suspected retained surgical item, triggering: Intraoperative X-rays An additional 45–60 minutes of delay Extended anesthesia time Extended anesthesia is not a neutral cost: → It is clinically linked to worsened prognosis in 14% of affected patients — compounding risk → These RSIs are classified as “Never Events” and carry significant financial and reputational risks, with average malpractice compensation of approximately $650,000 — and in severe cases, up to $2.2 million per incident. This burden not only jeopardizes patient outcomes and safety, but also drains critical nursing time, delays surgical schedules, increases operational costs, and exposes hospitals to significant financial and reputational risk.

Even in 2024, most OR documentation is still paper-based or manually entered into electronic health records (EHRs) after the procedure. Nurses are responsible for: Documenting tools used Verifying time-outs Recording intraoperative notes This process takes 20+ minutes per case, often occurring under pressure at the end of a long surgery. It introduces: ⏳ Turnover delays 🧾 Inconsistent and error-prone records 📉 Lost operational insights due to fragmented or incomplete data Manual documentation also prevents hospitals from gaining real-time visibility into OR performance and resource utilization — visibility that could be used to optimize staffing, improve case scheduling, reduce waste, and increase throughput. 🔹 A Recognized Problem Hospitals Struggle to Fix This is not a new issue — yet it persists due to: 📊 Limited access to validated, scalable data 🎯 Surgeon-driven variability, which makes it difficult to enforce standardized documentation 🧩 Unscalable and siloed digital solutions that fail to integrate into live workflows As a result, OR inefficiencies continue to: Cause cumulative delays across daily case loads Increase clinical and operational complications Waste valuable labor time Create significant costs that ultimately reduce hospital margins Manual tracking is not only time-consuming and unsustainable — it is also a missed opportunity for hospitals to leverage automation and data to drive performance and profitability.