The Large Kidney Care Organizations' Experience With the New Kidney Models.

Three years ago, the Advancing American Kidney Health executive order launched a substantial effort with the goals of delaying the progression of kidney disease while also increasing kidney transplantation and the utilization of home dialysis. Included among the initiatives created by this executive order are two new payment models under the supervision of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Innovation Center. The End Stage Renal Disease Treatment Choices model is a mandatory payment model impacting nephrologists and dialysis providers in many regions across the country. The Kidney Care Choices model offers nephrologists four voluntary options for participation in value-based care. The early experience of two large kidney care organizations highlights the improvements these payment models have demonstrated over prior kidney care payment models while also suggesting additional opportunities for improvement. These models offer nephrologists the opportunity to partner with other providers and deliver patient-centered care across the kidney care continuum. The models represent another step toward value-based care and, if successful, should yield great benefits for patients with kidney disease.

Informed decision-making in delivery of dialysis: combining clinical outcomes with sustainability.

As the prevalence of chronic kidney disease is expected to rise worldwide over the next decades, provision of renal replacement therapy (RRT), will further challenge budgets of all healthcare systems. Most patients today requiring RRT are treated with haemodialysis (HD) therapy and are elderly. This article demonstrates the interdependence of clinical and sustainability criteria that need to be considered to prepare for the future challenges of delivering dialysis to all patients in need. Newer, more sustainable models of high-value care need to be devised, whereby delivery of dialysis is based on value-based healthcare (VBHC) principles, i.e. improving patient outcomes while restricting costs. Essentially, this entails maximizing patient outcomes per amount of money spent or available. To bring such a meaningful change, revised strategies having the involvement of multiple stakeholders (i.e. patients, providers, payers and policymakers) need to be adopted. Although each stakeholder has a vested interest in the value agenda often with conflicting expectations and motivations (or motives) between each other, progress is only achieved if the multiple blocs of the delivery system are advanced as mutually reinforcing entities. Clinical considerations of delivery of dialysis need to be based on the entire patient disease pathway and evidence-based medicine, while the non-clinical sustainability criteria entail, in addition to economics, the societal and ecological implications of HD therapy. We discuss how selection of appropriate modes and features of delivery of HD (e.g. treatment modalities and schedules, selection of consumables, product life cycle assessment) could positively impact decision-making towards value-based renal care. Although the delivery of HD therapy is multifactorial and complex, applying cost-effectiveness analyses for the different HD modalities (conventional in-centre and home HD) can support in guiding payability (balance between clinical value and costs) for health systems. For a resource intensive therapy like HD, concerted and fully integrated care strategies need to be urgently implemented to cope with the global demand and burden of HD therapy.

Implications of the Advancing American Kidney Health Initiative for kidney transplant centers.

The announcement of the Advancing American Kidney Health (AAKH) Initiative on July 10, 2019 was met with a mix of excitement and trepidation, befitting a proposed radical reconfiguration of the delivery of kidney disease care. Aspiring to reduce the incidence of end-stage renal disease, increase the prevalence of home dialysis, and double the number of organs available for transplant, the AAKH payment models primarily focus on incenting behaviors of general nephrologists, though actualizing positive incentives will require the active cooperation of dialysis providers and transplant centers. Here, we review the AAKH initiatives' potential impact on all stakeholders and opine on financial and regulatory pressures on kidney transplant programs, outlining areas of uncertainty and concern, and suggest key points of reflection for clinical and administrative leaders of kidney transplant centers weighing participation in any of the voluntary payment models.

Clinical parameters before and after the transition to dialysis.

INTRODUCTION: The transition from pre-dialysis chronic kidney disease (CKD) to post-dialysis start is a critical period associated with high patient mortality and increased hospital admissions. Little is known about the trends of key clinical and laboratory parameters through this time of transition to start dialysis. METHODS: De-identified data including demographics, vital signs, lab results, and eGFR from the Fresenius Medical Care-CKD Registry were analyzed to determine trends in clinical and laboratory parameters through the time of transition from 12 months pre-dialysis start to 12 months post-dialysis start. Trends in key clinical and laboratory parameters associated with cardiovascular, nutritional, mineral metabolism and inflammatory domains were examined in association with the transition to dialysis start and first year dialysis survival. FINDINGS: All parameters show divergence for patients who survive vs. do not survive the first year of dialysis. Of note, during pre-dialysis CKD the absolute systolic blood pressure (SBP) level is lower and the slope for SBP decline is significantly steeper for patients who do not survive the first year on dialysis. DISCUSSION: This study uniquely demonstrates the trajectories of key parameters though the transition from pre-dialysis to post-dialysis start. Significant differences are noted in the pre-dialysis period for patients who survive vs. those who do not survive the first year of dialysis. Early recognition of adverse trends in the pre-dialysis period may create opportunity to intervene to improve early dialysis outcomes.

Improvements in MBD lab outcomes associated with improved pharmaceutical care in hemodialysis patients.

End stage renal disease (ESRD) patients require a large number of medications and are known to have high rates of nonadherence. It is estimated that >50% of ESRD patients do not take their phosphate binders as prescribed. The renal pharmacy FreseniusRx provides coordinated ESRD medication delivery and adherence support for enrolled patients. We investigated whether coordinated pharmacy care of mineral and bone disorder (MBD) therapies is associated with improvements in laboratory. outcomes. We used data from hemodialysis patients treated at Fresenius Medical Care North America (FMCNA) clinics from February 2014 to January 2015. We included patients who were residing in a state with >100 patients in the FMCNA network, not in a nursing home, and prescribed a phosphate binder and/or calcimimetic. We found 15,287 pharmacy patients who met the study criteria. Concurrent control patients not in the pharmacy were matched to pharmacy patients on a monthly basis that was based off the first date of receipt of therapy from FreseniusRx using 1:1 nearest neighbor matching on the logit of the propensity score for an array of clinical and non-clinical parameters. Logistic regression was used to measure the association between pharmacy care and patients achieving their laboratory goals for phosphorus (PO4) and intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH), and combined goals for total calcium (Ca), PO4, and iPTH. We analyzed data from 30,574 patients (15,287 pharmacy and control). In unadjusted and adjusted analyses, we consistently observed that pharmacy patients were more likely to achieve their MBD laboratory goals as compared to controls. In an adjusted analysis, we found pharmacy patients were more likely to achieve their MBD laboratory targets at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months for PO4 (11.1%, 10.5%, 11.8% and 12.7% respectively), iPTH (8.9%, 17.5%, 23.4% and 27.9% respectively) and combined goals for Ca, PO4, and. iPTH (12.1%, 13.4%, 16.7% and 21.2% respectivelv) versus controls (n<0.01 for all comparisons). These findings indicate that coordinated pharmaceutical care may be associated with improvements in patients achieving their MBD laboratory goals.

Health information technology: help or hindrance?

The practice of medicine in general and nephrology in particular grows increasingly complex with each passing year. In parallel with this trend, the purchasers of health care are slowly shifting the reimbursement paradigm from one based on rewarding transactions, or work performed, to one that rewards value delivered. Within this context, the health-care value equation is broadly defined as quality divided by costs. Health information technology has been widely recognized as 1 of the foundations for delivering better care at lower costs. As the largest purchaser of health care in the world, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has deployed a series of interrelated programs designed to spur the adoption and utilization of health information technology. This review examines our known collective experience in the practice of nephrology to date with several of these programs and attempts to answer the following question: Is health information technology helping or hindering the delivery of value to the nation's health-care system? Through this review, it was concluded overall that the effect of health information technology appears positive; however, it cannot be objectively determined because of the infancy of its utilization in the practice of medicine.

Big data in nephrology: friend or foe?

The phrase 'big data' has arrived in today's lexicon with great fanfare and some degree of hyperbole. Generally speaking, big data refer to data sets that are too complex to be successfully interrogated using standard statistical software. A wide variety of business sectors has utilized big data to garner competitive advantage within their respective markets. Medicine and nephrology, in particular, have been late to this table. This is beginning to change, however, as data scientists begin to work with these large data sets, developing predictive models that permit us to peer into the future. Coupled with an expanding understanding of genomics, predictive models constructed with the assistance of big data may soon provide us with a powerful tool to use as we provide care to patients with renal disease.

Electronic prescribing by the numbers.

Unless you plan to retire from the practice of nephrology within the next six months, you owe it to yourself and your patients to take a very close look at the electronic prescribing opportunities available to you today. As we near the end of the financial rewards attached to the incentive program, we must prepare to navigate the rapidly approaching penalty phase for non-participants.

Health information technology: driving adoption.

The past two years in the electronic health record (EHR) market have been a frothy churn of change, as vendors and providers grapple with the complexities of "meaningful use:' Guided by the belief that widespread utilization of health information technology will lead to better health care outcomes, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has crafted a EHR incentive program using a multi-stage approach, or "glide path:' lined with a series of financial rewards and penalties as incentives to both drive behavior and overcome one of the known barriers to the widespread deployment of EHRs--the cost.

With federal aid, nephrologists will benefit from evolving technologies.

As we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century, we are witnessing the confluence of a number of factors that, taken together, have the opportunity to fulfill the promise of health information technology. CMS is bringing substantial financial pressure to bear through ARRA, PQRI, and the e-prescribing initiatives. The OIG safe harbor and the Stark exception for EHR donations facilitate the provision of additional incentives to many nephrologists. Technological advances related to speed, interoperability, and mobile platforms are converging to allow EHRs to offer the right information at the right time to support the nephrologist's delivery of the best care possible to an increasingly complex patient population. In this dynamic environment, nephrologists must move both quickly and cautiously as they select, implement and adopt an electronic health record.