Boston Scientific has launched a new app, called the Ureteral Stent Tracker, that helps urologists and their staff keep tabs on ureteral stents implanted in patients with kidney stones. The app was developed in partnership with health app developer Visible Health.

Ureteral stents is a thin tube inserted into a patient’s ureter to hold the ureter open and maintain proper drainage of urine. Often, doctors will remove their patients’ ureteral stent after about a month, but according to Boston Scientific, 13 out of 100 ureteral stents will be forgotten, and are left in the patient for six months or more. A majority of the stents that are not taken out become encrusted and that leads to an increased risk of infection.

Boston Scientific’s app, available as a smartphone app or via web portal, allows urologists to document when they first implant a patient with a ureteral stent, record the date that they want to remove the stent, and set automated reminders telling them when they should take the stent out.

If the urologist is using a Boston Scientific stent, they can scan the barcode on the package to quickly upload details about the device. Ureteral Stent Tracker also offers users a dashboard they can use to monitor the status of all active stent cases or get patient-specific summaries. Urologists are also able to share cases with other staff members in their organization and set default followers to specific cases.