A Solution for Medical and Legal Problems Arising From Forgotten Ureteral Stents: Reminder Short Message Service (SMS)

In this study, first an institutional subscription agreement was signed between our university and a mobile phone cell company which is supporting SMS sending program. In the second step, by making software plug-in to our hospital's patient follow up program, two programs were integrated. According to this integration, after stent insertion, in case of entering the numerical code corresponding of ''ureteral stent application'' procedure during the stage of epicrisis preparation, the patient follow up system warns the official recording the epicrisis to enter the stent removal time. Patient follow up system transfers this information to SMS sending program. After several weeks of the procedure, if the stent needs to be removed, the software automatically sends a warning message to the patient and the physician. If the patients attends to urology department and undergoes stent removal, the official enters the code of "endoscopic stent removal" to the patient follow-up program. Then the program stops to send warning message.

By the software plug-in to patient follow up program, SMS sending was made mandatory not to forget or skip none of the patients during the epicrisis writing procedure.