Introduction: The forgotten ureteral stent (FUS) can lead to patient morbidity. To date, tracking ureteral stents is a cumbersome task, given their high frequency of insertion and variable indwelling times. To simplify this process, an application was developed to track patients with indwelling ureteral stents. We report our initial user experience and clinical outcomes with this application.
Methods: Ureteral Stent Tracker™ (UST) is a secure, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA)-compliant, cloud-based point-of-care application. It is designed for logging stent insertion, scheduling the date of anticipated stent extraction, and confirming stent removal. It is accessible via a mobile phone application or web browser interface. We consecutively enrolled all patients who underwent ureteral stent insertion for any indication by two urologists from January 10, 2015, to October 10, 2016. A retrospective chart review was performed of all patients included in the UST database. Data extracted included patient demographics, diagnosis, procedure, and stent characteristics.
Results: A total of 115 patients were included with a mean age of 52.4 years; 54% (62/115) were male and 58% (67/115) were Caucasian. This cohort represented 146 ureteral stent care plans with 23 patients (23/115; 20%) having more than one care plan during the study period. The most common procedure performed was ureteroscopy (70/146; 48%) for a diagnosis of nephrolithiasis (108/146; 74%). The median indwelling ureteral stent time was 14 days (interquartile range: 7-45 days). A total of three patients (3/115; 3%) did not return for their scheduled extraction, but were identified only through the application. Each patient was contacted, resulting in effective removal of all three stents in the office.
Conclusions: Tracking of ureteral stents is critical to prevent the patient safety issue of the FUS. The UST is a secure, HIPPA-compliant, cloud-based application, which once incorporated into the workflow of a urologic practice can prevent the FUS.
Keywords: nephrolithiasis; patient safety; stents.