Patent ID: 8105296

Claim:
A surgical sponge counting system, comprising: a plurality of sponges made of an absorbent material; an RF identification tag carried by each of said plurality of sponges, each tag being operable to transmit a unique data string corresponding to the tagged sponge; and an automatic sponge counter apparatus comprising: a container configured for receiving said surgical sponges without requiring user sorting of said sponges; a non-optical scanner for interrogating RF identification tagged sponges in said container, said scanner simultaneously reading a plurality of tagged sponges present within said container, said scanner detecting each of the plurality of tagged sponges electromagnetically, said scanner detecting the unique data strings corresponding to each of the plurality of tagged sponges; and a control unit that maintains a count of a total number of tagged sponges present in said container, said control unit maintaining a running count of a number of tagged sponges from a predetermined time, said control unit being responsive to said non-optical scanner, said control unit receiving the unique data strings from the non-optical scanner, said control unit identifying each of the plurality of tagged sponges based on the unique data string.