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TO HEALTH, MEDICAL, AND NATIONAL EDITORS:
The Renal Physicians Association Releases App for Improving Dialysis
Decisions and Quality of Life for Kidney Patients
ROCKVILLE, Md., April 14, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Renal
Physicians Association released a free iPad app to assist
nephrologists with shared decision-making (SDM) and pain and symptom
management for acute kidney injury (AKI), chronic kidney disease (CKD)
and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients at the point of care.
Adam Weinstein, MD, a RPA Board Member and the leader of the app
development team, explains that the RPA SDM Toolkit app is an
interactive, workflow-driven version of the RPA's Clinical Practice
Guideline on Shared Decision Making in the Appropriate Initiation of
and Withdrawal from Dialysis, 2nd Edition. It offers nephrologists the
tools and recommendations with which they can aid adult and pediatric
patients who have AKI, CKD, or ESRD in initiating, withholding and
withdrawing dialysis. This app combines the benefits of the
evidence-based guideline -- consensus expert opinion informed by
ethical principles, case and statutory law, and systematic review of
research evidence -- with a step-by-step approach to working through
the process of decision making and symptom assessment with the patient
and family in real time.
Alvin H. Moss, MD, Director, Center for Health Ethics and Law, West
Virginia University, who headed the SDM Guideline Revision Working
Group, acknowledges that clinicians want to strengthen collaborative
decision-making but have struggled to do so. "The RPA SDM app puts
into the hands of the rounding nephrologist and other clinicians
multiple evidence-based, easy-to-use tools which can be used to
improve the quality of care for their patients with kidney disease.
The app fills in the knowledge gap of nephrologists who did not learn
about palliative and end-of-life care for CKD and ESRD patients in
fellowship training."
Highlights include a validated prognosis calculator for dialysis
patients, specific pathways for initiating, withholding and
withdrawing dialysis, pain and symptom assessment scoring systems, and
links to many web-based resources. While this app does not store data,
it does offer the ability to compile the work done into a PDF suitable
for uploading or printing and scanning for storage in paper or
electronic charts.
It is provided free of charge for the iPad only via the iTunes store
and recommended for all kidney care providers. To download the RPA SDM
app, visit https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id843971920?mt=8. Funding
to support app development was provided by DaVita.
The full guideline may be downloaded at
http://www.renalmd.org/catalogue-item.aspx?id=682.
The Renal Physicians Association (RPA) is the professional
organization of nephrologists whose goal is to ensure quality care
under the highest standards of medical practice for patients with
kidney disease and related disorders. For more information about RPA
please visit www.renalmd.org or call 301-468-3515.
SOURCE Renal Physicians Association
-0- 04/14/2014
/CONTACT: Amy Beckrich, Renal Physicians Association, 301-468-3515, rpa@renalmd.org
/Web Site: http://www.renalmd.org
CO: Renal Physicians Association
ST: Maryland
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SU: PDT
PRN
-- DC04667 --
0000 04/14/2014 17:04:00 EDT http://www.prnewswire.com
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