Kidney Community Launches Health Care Campaign to Improve Survival Rates of First-Year Dialysis Patien...( - PEAK Campaign: Performance Excel...),Health

- "PEAK" Campaign: "Performance Excellence and Accountability in Kidney Care" to reduce mortality by 20 percent, extend 10,000 lives by the end of 2012 -

WASHINGTON, June 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Kidney Care Partners announced the launch of a voluntary quality improvement campaign pledging to reduce mortality among first-year dialysis patients -- those at the greatest risk -- in Iowa and across the country by 20 percent by the end of 2012.

The "Performance Excellence and Accountability in Kidney Care" or PEAK Campaign (www.kidneycarequality.org) to reduce mortality in the first year will focus on patient education and key clinical care activities to achieve its goal.

Led by Kidney Care Partners, with support from research partners at Brown University and Quality Partners of Rhode Island as well as experts in the kidney community, the PEAK Campaign will:

• Equip health care providers with tools to help first-year dialysis patients better transition;
• Improve the health and survival of first-year dialysis patients;
• Result in reduced hospitalizations, thus resulting in Medicare savings.

Kidney disease affects more than 26 million people nationwide. Approximately 400,000 Americans suffer from kidney failure and require dialysis or kidney transplantation to survive. Transplants are limited due to the shortage of donor organs, so most patients undergo dialysis for three to four hours, three times a week. The number of Americans with kidney disease is rising steadily due to risk factors including diabetes, hypertension, obesity and high blood pressure.

African Americans, Hispanics and other minority groups are most at-risk for developing kidney failure. And while African Americans make up just 12 percent of t
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