Urinary Health (Urology)

Urologic Surgery Outcomes

If your child has a urological problem (affecting the kidneys, ureter, bladder, urethra, penis, or testes), you’ve come to the right place. At Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, we were named one of the best children’s hospitals in the nation for pediatric urology by U.S. News & World Report. Our urologists also have been selected as some of the “Best Doctors in America®.” But we never stop learning and trying to make our care even better for children like yours.

To help us gauge how we’re doing and identify areas where we might need to make improvements, we keep track of our surgical outcomes (that is, the results of our care). Then, we compare ourselves to the outcomes at other children’s surgical programs across the country. Our results show that we’re delivering top-quality care and truly treating all of the children we see as if they were our own.

What Does This Graph Mean?

Here’s how our 2010 urologic surgery results for three key outcomes compare to other top children’s surgical programs nationwide:

• Unplanned return to the operating room (when kids had to have another surgery within 30 days because of problems following their previous operation): We’re on par with the national average of 1.60%.
• Non-infectious postoperative occurrences (when a child has complications or problems that happen after surgery and may involve the heart, lungs, eating): Elsewhere, the average is 2.81%, compared to our lower (better) rate of 2.53%.
• Wound occurrences (when a child has complications with the surgical wound, such as infections): When it comes to keeping wound complications low, we’re doing much better than the national average of 1.5% at other facilities, versus only 0.32% here. So that means our rate is five times lower (which means better) than the national average.

Our Excellence in Urologic Surgery

As board-certified specialists, our surgeons perform all kinds of state-of-the-art surgical interventions, from simple procedures to complex robotic surgeries. We’re able to provide the latest treatments and techniques that help kids heal faster — and get back to their lives sooner.

That includes minimally invasive procedures, which can be performed using the child’s natural openings (like the mouth and throat) or through tiny incisions an inch or smaller (whereas operations typically done with “open surgery” require larger “open” incisions). Minimally invasive procedures often mean:

• shorter hospital stays
• quicker recovery times
• less pain and discomfort
• reduced chance of infection and bleeding
• much smaller scars

Whatever kind of surgery your child needs, we’re dedicated to giving the very best care we can — whatever it takes.

Our Pediatric Urology Care Ranks in Top 20%

At Nemours, we believe that your family’s care experience is an important part of the overall quality of care that we provide for your child. We listen closely to you — asking for your input on an ongoing basis through patient satisfaction surveys conducted by Press Ganey (a research firm that surveys patient-families from more than 7,000 health care organizations).

Press Ganey not only helps us measure our performance in relationship to other pediatric health care providers, it enables us to identify ways that we can improve your family’s experience.

We’re proud to report that recent survey results from our medical practices place Nemours urology in the top 20% of pediatric health care providers in these key satisfaction areas:

• Effort to include in decisions
  
• Friendliness and courtesy
• Likelihood of recommending practice

In the Words of Our Patient-Families

Just as gratifying as the survey results, are the personal responses about Nemours urology care that we receive from parents.

Here are just a few of the notes:

Pediatric Urology Research in Delaware

The Urology Research lab, led by clinician scientist, Dr. Julia Barthold, works to identify the genetic and environmental causes of one of the most common congenital (present from birth) conditions seen in newborn boys. 

Cryptorchidism, or undescended testes (UDT) is a complex disease that may be the result of interaction between genes and the environment, and is associated with impaired fertility and risk of testicular cancer.

Our scientists plan to look for variations in the DNA sequence and expression of these genes in boys with UDT in order to identify risk factors.

The study’s long-term goal is to identify markers for genetic and environmental causes of UDT that may also be used to identify individuals at risk for infertility and malignancy, and optimize our treatment of this condition.

Information from Nemours KidsHealth.org

We realize that you may have questions about your child’s urologic condition, so we’ve provided resources below that have been medically reviewed by our Nemours experts at KidsHealth.org or approved by our Nemours pediatric urologists.

• Bedwetting   
• What Can I do About my Child's Bedwetting?
• Toilet teaching your child 
  
• Circumcision
• Could that Lump be a Hernia?
  
• The Facts on Undescended Testicles
• Kidney Diseases in Childhood  
• Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) 
  
• Kidneys and Urinary Tract  
• Recurrent Urinary Tract Infections and Related Conditions
• Urine Tests
  
• When Your Child Has a Chronic Kidney Disease
• Ultrasound: Renal (Kidneys, Ureters, Bladder)
• Male Reproductive System  
• Female Reproductive system
• Sexual Development  
• Understanding Early Sexual Development
• Talking to Your Child About Puberty
• Questions and Answers About Sex

Information from Additional Trusted Resources

• Bedwetting Store  
• Deflux — Information about Deflux injections for vesicoureteral reflux (VUR)
• VURinfo.com — Information about vesicoureteral reflux (VUR)
• National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
• National Kidney Foundation
• Kidney and Urology Foundation of America