Unplanned Visits After Urinary Stone Treatment Defined

Researchers have found that, overall, 1 in 7 patients who undergo a procedure to treat urinary stones make unplanned, high-acuity, follow-up visits, defined as presentation to an emergency department or a hospital admission within 30 days of the procedure.

Charles D. Scales, MD, of Duke University in Durham, N.C., and colleagues identified 93,523 initial procedures to fragment or remove urinary stones.

Unplanned visits occur less frequently after shockwave lithotripsy (12% of cases) and occurred with similar frequency after ureteroscopy and percutaneous nephrostolithotomy (15%), the investigators reported in Surgery (2014;155:769-775). Procedures at high-volume facilities were substantially less likely to result in an unplanned visit.

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