For a study, researchers sought to provide a straightforward approach for tracking indwelling ureteral stents using the Epic electronic medical record and assess the prevalence of forgotten ureteral stents in a pediatric population. They discovered that operating room staff scans a barcode for ureteral stents at the time of operation to log the stent as “Implanted” in the patient’s medical record. It might be noted as “Explanted when the stent was removed.” A report was created in Epic to identify all patients who had a ureteral stent inserted at the hospital between April 2014 and June 2019. They looked through the records of patients whose stents had never been labeled as “Explanted” to see if any of them had a stent that had not been removed. After that, a workflow was created to guarantee that personnel marked stents as “Explanted” at the moment of removal. The report was run regularly in Epic to ensure that all patients with ureteral stents received proper follow-up. Investigators found 152 ureteral stents in the study with the status “Implanted.” However, 3 patients’ medical records did not show that their stents had been removed. These individuals’ follow-up revealed that they had their stents removed at a different place. Using an automated Epic report, all patients having ureteral stents inserted at a single institution over a 5-year period were easily identified. The study group prevented stent-related morbidity with the help of the report. Similar reporting features might be built within other electronic medical record systems, and this technique could be applied to other hospital systems that use Epic. The incidence of ureteral stent retention in children was much lower than in adults.
Source:www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S147751312100471X
