Patent ID: 7268684

Claim:
An apparatus for identifying surgical instruments and surgical instrument trays, comprising: a stationary RFID workstation reader comprising: a substantially planar work surface dimensioned to support one or more surgical instrument trays; a support structure elevating the work surface; one or more RF antenna transceivers adapted to project an RF field onto the work surface to obtain identification information from an RFID transponder-tagged surgical instrument tray and RFID transponder-tagged surgical instruments contained on the tray; a control circuit including a data processor and a database communicatively connected to the one or more RF antenna transceivers for processing the identification information to determine compliance with at least one predetermined condition, wherein determining compliance with at least one predetermined condition comprises identifying the instrument tray in the database and comparing the identification information of actual tray contents to stored information associated with an identification number of the tray; and an indicator adapted to provide a user indication regarding compliance with the at least one predetermined condition.