Recording: COVID-19 and urology – What we have learned from the pandemic?
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our daily practice. Healthcare professionals in direct contact with patients have been exposed to significant risk. To reduce pathogen spread, hospitals have been restricted, including cancellation of elective surgeries, which has posed a substantial burden for patients and immense economic loss. The integration of new technologies as a “barrier” between the virus and practitioners is a powerful tool to avoid pathogen contamination and spreading and maintain surgical volumes.
| Organiser | European School of Urology (ESU) |
|---|---|
| CME | Not approved |
| Duration | Approx. 60 minutes |
Telemedicine provides remote clinical support using technological tools. It may facilitate health care delivery while reducing unnecessary visits to the clinic. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has caused an abrupt change in our daily urological practice, converting many of us to be reliant on telehealth. It is time for us to formalize the place of telemedicine in routine urological practice, and it is our responsibility to adapt and learn about all the tools and possible strategies for their optimal implementation to ensure that the quality of care received by patients are of the highest standard.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted non-COVID-19 healthcare services and threatened the ability of the medical system to respond to routine patient needs; also, urological procedures were significantly cut-back worldwide, and benign diseases were the most affected. Even though urolithiasis is considered a benign disease, it could be time-sensitive in terms of functional and infective outcomes. Therefore, stone management is mandatory during this pandemic. This COVID-19 pandemic represents a real challenge for all national health providers: on the one hand, every effort should be made to assist COVID patients, while on the other hand we must remember that all other diseases have not disappeared in the meanwhile and they will urgently need to be treated as soon as the pandemic is more under control. As we maximize effort to maintain oncological priorities, patients with benign disease also deserve attention. In other words it is our responsibility as urologists to limit severe sequelae of COVID-19 in our patients who have not been infected by it. The aim of this lecture is to formulate management proposals for stone patients during the COVID and post-COVID era in order to minimize COVID-19 transmission and, at the same time, to manage urolithiasis, on the basis of international guidelines and clinical experience aiming to prevent any severe complications.