Welcome to the CKDintercept Blog: Advancing Early CKD Detection and Care

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is an underrecognized public health crisis. An estimated 35.5 million Americans live with CKD, yet a staggering 90%—more than 32 million people—remain undiagnosed. Most individuals at high risk aren’t getting the simple tests that could identify kidney disease early: only about 20% receive appropriate screening.

CKD doesn’t just impact the kidneys. It’s a powerful disease multiplier that significantly raises the risk of cardiovascular disease, drives up health care costs, and increases hospitalizations—even in its earliest stages. But despite this, CKD often flies under the radar in population health initiatives.

The good news? We have tools to intervene. A suite of evidence-based interventions can slow CKD progression and reduce cardiovascular risk. But these tools are underutilized with current levels of testing and diagnosis.  To address this, we need to tackle the systemic and clinical barriers that stand in the way of early detection and care.

That’s where CKDintercept (CKDi) comes in. An initiative of the National Kidney Foundation (NKF), CKDi launched in 2014 to address these gaps with systems-based approaches that elevate CKD testing and care quality in primary care settings. Some key milestones from the CKDi initiative include:

• The CKD Change Package – A toolkit of evidence-based strategies to improve diagnosis in primary care. It’s been cited by CDC, Healthy People 2030, and other public health leaders.
• Demonstrating the cost impact of CKD – Through a collaboration with CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, NKF deployed a quality improvement effort to increase CKD testing, which resulted in fewer emergency visits and hospitalizations and significant per-member-per-month cost savings. 
• CKD Learning Collaborative – A structured support model for implementing CKD best practices. Participating organizations have seen up to 60% increases in CKD testing among at-risk patients.

We’ve made incredible progress—but there’s still much more to do. This blog is here to:

1. Build awareness of CKD’s impact on health outcomes and costs—and the benefits of early intervention.
2. Spotlight real-world success stories from organizations transforming CKD care.
3. Empower more partners with tools and strategies to close care gaps.

The National Kidney Foundation can’t do this alone. But we can use our platform to help empower you with the right data, strategies, and momentum to improve outcomes and lower costs for millions of people living with or at risk for CKD.

Stay tuned and join us in driving change.