The National Kidney Foundation Releases Updated Change Package to Improve CKD Care
~Web-based tool aims to help health professionals improve care through better recognition and management of CKD~
(New York, NY—May 09, 2024) —The National Kidney Foundation (NKF) has released an update to its popular web-based Change Package tool. “Chronic Kidney Disease Change Package - 2023: Population Health Strategies for Cardiovascular and Kidney Disease Risk Reduction” is a compilation of evidence-based tools and strategies to facilitate improvements in early recognition and management of chronic kidney disease (CKD). Approximately 40,000 health professionals and organizations accessed the initial edition of this resource to find suggestions to optimize CKD outcomes through a systematic approach for advancing kidney disease care, equity, and quality improvement.
"Improving CKD care in primary care requires multiple interventions," said Joseph Vassalotti, MD, Chief Medical Officer of the National Kidney Foundation. "There are a series of activities - getting the right people at the table, building solutions to get buy-in to try to improve the quality of care, ensuring that everyone knows what they need to know - that needs to be individualized to the practice or health system. The CKD Change Package offers a structured approach to provide a road map for success in transforming CKD care regardless of the practice setting."
The foundation of the Change Package is a dashboard of process improvement activities aligned with the phases of change associated with quality improvement: understanding the problem, planning, preparation, implementation, execution, and evaluation. The CKD Change Package content is organized into six Stages, each associated with actionable Change Ideas supported by evidence-based, guideline-driven Tools and Resources. These Tools and Resources can be utilized to implement care improvements and are adaptable to local practice needs, resources, and workflows and tailored to the priority populations served.
“The primary care challenge of an overflowing to-do list with little time has encouraged us to delay adding CKD to the problem list, focusing instead on the underlying chronic diseases themselves and/or hoping that unexplained proteinuria will not be a persistent or progressive thing,” said Mark Loafman MD, MPH, Chair of Family and Community Medicine for Cook County Health in Chicago. “However, we now know that patients really want to know they have (or are at risk for) CKD as early as we know and the good news is, rather than derailing our focus on contributing conditions, preventing progression of early kidney disease seems to be one of the incentives for patient engagement in self-management we love to find. That said, we also know that change is hard and NKF's masterfully crafted Change Package is just the roadmap we need to update workflows, add decision support and help drive the changes needed to slow and even halt progression of CKD, before it's too late."
The updated Change Package also considers the significant milestones that have impacted effective kidney care in recent years, including:
• Implementation of the 2021 CKD–EPI race–free eGFR equations,
• Implementation of CKD-specific quality measures,
• Implementation of novel, evidence-based therapies for kidney and cardiovascular protection, and
• Interventions to improve equity in CKD care.
The CKD Change Package is a foundational component of CKDintercept a major NKF public health initiative offering interventions to improve CKD care. Several components of this initiative including Ending Disparities in CKD Leadership Summits, CKD Data Strategy, and CKD Learning Collaborative, are approaches supporting the implementation of the CKD Change Package in primary care settings.
For more information or to access the NKF CKD Change Package please visit URL: https://www.kidney.org/professionals/ckd-intercept/ckd-change-package
About Kidney Disease
In the United States, more than 37 million adults are estimated to have kidney disease, also known as chronic kidney disease (CKD)—and approximately 90 percent don’t know they have it. About 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. are at risk for kidney disease. Risk factors for kidney disease include: diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, and family history. People of Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian American, or Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander descent are at increased risk for developing the disease. Black or African American people are about four times as likely as White people to have kidney failure. Hispanics experience kidney failure at about double the rate of White people.
About KIDNEY EQUITY FOR ALL™
Historically, access to kidney health has remained inequitable, with persistent disparities disproportionately affecting underserved populations and impacting the entire kidney patient journey. To address these disparities, NKF is urging industry and community leaders to join them on their KIDNEY EQUITY FOR ALL™ mission by allocating resources to improve healthcare access and outcomes in communities of color. This is a tangible opportunity for businesses to incorporate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles into their operations. For more information on KIDNEY EQUITY FOR ALL™, visit www.kidneyequityforall.org.
About the National Kidney Foundation
The National Kidney Foundation is revolutionizing the fight to save lives by eliminating preventable kidney disease, accelerating innovation for the dignity of the patient experience, and dismantling structural inequities in kidney care, dialysis, and transplantation.
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