Rep. Lewis Commends Kidney Care Partners' Health Care Campaign to Improve Survival Rates of First-Year Dialysis Patients ...(ommunity and find ways to respond. Savi...),Health

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 the general population, they account for 30 percent of people with kidney failure.

There were 3,790 new dialysis patients in 2007 in Georgia alone, a 15 percent increase since 2003, and a total of 14,086 patients on dialysis in 2007 in Georgia, a more than 20 percent increase since 2003, according to the Southeastern Kidney Council.

All too often, the onset of chronic kidney disease (CKD) is gradual and undetected, leaving patients especially vulnerable when the disease is recognized. Helping patients to understand their disease and to manage it appropriately is an essential ingredient to high quality care for newly diagnosed patients and a central component of the PEAK Campaign.

"The kidney care community has achieved considerable and measurable quality improvements in the last decade. The goal of the PEAK Campaign is to help us achieve comparable results in the next decade," said Kent Thiry, KCP Chair. "Our Campaign focuses on patients who are new to dialysis, because these patients are particularly vulnerable. One challenge is to help these patients understand and effectively manage their disease. We also will start a systematic community-wide process of identifyin
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