A separate study published the same year by doctors at Minnesota's Mayo Clinic found that counts failed to show anything amiss in 68% of cases where a sponge was lost. "When you're counting multiple objects over a longer course of time, such as an operation, and you have significant competing priorities and tasks that need to be done, as well as multiple people coming in and out to perform those tasks, you're going to have errors," says Robert Cima, the Mayo Clinic surgeon and professor who led the study.
USA Today by Peter Eisler
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