What is PKIDS?

PKIDS stands for the Pediatric KIDney Stone Care Improvement Network. We are a community of patients, caregivers, clinicians, and researchers who perform collaborative studies of kidney stones at 26 pediatric healthcare systems in North America. The Network arose out of the 8 institutions that comprise PEDSnet, responding to an expressed need from patients and their caregivers to better understand the treatment of kidney stones. Specifically, the comparative effectiveness of different surgical approaches to remove kidney stones, the impact of these surgeries of patients’ lives, and insight into the recovery period.

A rapid increase in the prevalence of kidney stones among youth over the past decade has resulted in a large population of patients for whom little evidence exists to guide clinical care. To bridge the resulting knowledge gap, PKIDS aims to increase the evidence base for surgical management of kidney stone events by generating knowledge of outcomes that are most important to pediatric patients and their caregivers. 

PKIDS leverages the infrastructure of PEDSnet to efficiently perform studies that will ultimately translate findings into clinical practice through generation and application of knowledge.