Why the study?
Does a virtual CKD clinic prevent emergency dialysis and improve survival in patients with chronic kidney disease?
Does a virtual CKD clinic prevent emergency dialysis and improve survival in patients with chronic kidney disease?
A virtual clinic for non-face-to-face monitoring of CKD patients is safe and effective, with no patients requiring emergency dialysis and survival comparable to primary care management.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Virtual CKD clinic monitoring appears effective in retrospective data; hypothesis-generating and requires prospective trials before practice change.
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is common. A small proportion of patients with CKD progress to require interventions, which may include dialysis. Monitoring patients with CKD is supported by national guidelines. Monitoring systems to plan management of CKD vary in form. A novel monitoring system, the virtual CKD clinic (VC) was introduced at our hospital. The VC is a non-face-to-face results review of patients with CKD. We found that the VC was an effective monitoring system. None of the patients from the VC required emergency dialysis, suggesting robust surveillance. Survival was similar to patients with CKD discharged to primary care.
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Harnett et al. (2018) studied this question.
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