A Single-Center Retrospective Study on the Initiation of Peritoneal Dialysis in Patients With Cardiorenal Syndrome and Subsequent Hospitalizations.

Background: Inotropic dependence and diuretic resistance in patients with cardiorenal syndrome (CRS) lead to frequent hospitalizations and are associated with high mortality. Starting peritoneal dialysis (PD) acutely (within 2 weeks of a heart failure hospitalization) offers effective volume removal without hemodynamic compromise in this population. There is little data on this approach in the North American literature.

Quantifying the risk of insertion-related peritoneal dialysis catheter complications following laparoscopic placement: Results from the North American PD Catheter Registry.

Background: Peritoneal dialysis (PD) is a more cost-effective therapy to treat kidney failure than in-center hemodialysis, but successful therapy requires a functioning PD catheter that causes minimal complications. In 2015, the North American Chapter of the International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis established the North American PD Catheter Registry to improve practices and patient outcomes following PD catheter insertion.

Aims: The objective of this study is to propose a methodology for defining insertion-related complications that lead to significant adverse events and report the risk of these complications among patients undergoing laparoscopic PD catheter insertion.

A Survey of Training for Temporary Hemodialysis Catheter Insertion During Nephrology Fellowship in Canada: An Update.

Background: Controversy exists as to whether the insertion of temporary hemodialysis catheters (THDCs) should remain a mandatory requirement of nephrology fellowship training in Canada. A survey conducted by our group in 2012 showed that many nephrology trainees reported inadequate training to achieve procedural competence.

Objective: To determine the current practices and training of the insertion of THDCs in nephrology fellowship programs in Canada and how this has evolved since 2012.

Supporting the Establishment of New Home Dialysis Programs Through the Explore Home Dialysis Program.

Introduction: The globally increasing prevalence of chronic kidney disease has resulted in an ever-growing demand for renal replacement therapy. Although programs are present around the world, there is a paucity of immersive educational programs that train clinicians and administrators to develop new home dialysis programs. Explore Home Dialysis (EHD) is a program created to fill this gap.

Assessing Student Attitudes Regarding Cost-Consciousness in Medical Education.

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. : The purpose of this study was to compare attitudes regarding cost-consciousness between student populations at two medical schools in the United States and Canada.

Quality improvement in pediatric nephrology-a practical guide.

Improving quality of care delivery is an important focus for all practicing physicians. Frontline clinicians are in a great position to identify clinical problems and find innovative solutions. The current review describes the method used for quality improvement based on the Model for Improvement, a structural framework to guide improvement work.

Renal thrombotic microangiopathy and pulmonary arterial hypertension in a patient with late-onset cobalamin C deficiency.

Cobalamin C (cblC) deficiency is the most commonly inherited inborn error of vitamin B12 metabolism. It is characterized by multisystem involvement with severe neurological, hematological, renal and cardiopulmonary manifestations. Disease is most commonly diagnosed early in the first decade of life.

Attitudes and Opinions of Canadian Nephrologists Toward Continuous Quality Improvement Options.

Background And Objectives: A shift to holding individual physicians accountable for patient outcomes, rather than facilities, is intuitively attractive to policy makers and to the public. We were interested in nephrologists' attitudes to, and awareness of, quality metrics and how nephrologists would view a potential switch from the current model of facility-based quality measurement and reporting to publically available reports at the individual physician level.

Design Setting Participants And Measurements: The study was conducted using a web-based survey instrument (Online Appendix 1).

Self-cannulation of the vascular access in home hemodialysis: Overcoming patient-level barriers.

Patients with end-stage kidney disease who are considering home hemodialysis (HHD) face the challenge of learning to self-cannulate their arteriovenous access. Current practice discourages the use of tunneled central venous catheters, with recent indications that self-cannulating patients have superior outcomes. Patient-level barriers do not appear to preclude a successful HHD program and should not be viewed as insurmountable by healthcare staff or patients.

Does peritoneal dialysis have a role in urgent-start end-stage kidney disease?

Despite its many positive attributes, peritoneal dialysis remains underutilized, particularly in the United States. Urgent-start peritoneal dialysis (PD) has been proposed as a method of increasing PD prevalence. Urgent-start PD has been shown to be safe, feasible, and effective.

Closing the Care Gap: A Primer on Quality Improvement for Heart Failure Clinicians.

Quality improvement (QI) initiatives have become an integral part of patient-centered care. In this primer, we outline 6 steps for initiating, implementing, and monitoring improvement in heart failure care. These steps include acknowledging that improvement is needed and setting a culture for improvement; forming a QI team; understanding the local problem; generating improvement strategies that will fit with the local problem; monitoring; testing; and refining improvements, analysis of data, and interpretation of run charts.

Ultrasound-Guided Cannulation of the Hemodialysis Arteriovenous Access.

Successful cannulation of the arteriovenous access for patients with end-stage kidney failure to allow catheter-free hemodialysis is associated with superior patient outcomes. With an increasing rate of arteriovenous access creation, coupled with increasing dialysis patient age, the "difficult-to-cannulate" access is becoming more commonplace. Ultrasound-guided cannulation aims to improve first-time successful cannulations and minimize cannulation-associated complications such as infiltration and hematoma formation, minimizing delays in access use and reducing catheter dependency.

Targeted Deprescribing in an Outpatient Hemodialysis Unit: A Quality Improvement Study to Decrease Polypharmacy.

Background: Polypharmacy in hemodialysis patients can result in adverse patient outcomes. Deprescribing tools can reduce polypharmacy, yet no method exists for an outpatient hemodialysis population.

Design: Quality improvement study.

Choosing Wisely: The Canadian Society of Nephrology's List of 5 Items Physicians and Patients Should Question.

Purpose Of Review: The purpose of this review is to contribute to the Choosing Wisely Canada campaign and develop a list of 5 items for nephrology health care professionals and patients to re-evaluate based on evidence that they are overused or misused.

Sources Of Information: A working group was formed from the Canadian Society of Nephrology (CSN) Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee. This working group sequentially used a multistage Delphi method, a survey of CSN members, a modified Delphi process, and a comprehensive literature review to determine 10 candidate items representing potentially ineffective care in nephrology.

Renal Tubular Toxicity Associated With Rosuvastatin Therapy.

Preapproval clinical trials examining the safety and efficacy of rosuvastatin demonstrated an increased incidence of proteinuria, hematuria, rhabdomyolysis, and other acute kidney injury of unknown cause at high doses. The latter cases manifested with urine sediment findings and in some cases, renal histology, indicating renal tubular injury in the absence of rhabdomyolysis. Despite these provocative findings, there have been very few reports in the literature regarding non-rhabdomyolysis-mediated acute kidney injury associated with high-dose rosuvastatin since its widespread introduction more than a decade ago, suggesting that it is either a rare entity or systematically underdiagnosed and under-reported.

Achieving Procedural Competence during Nephrology Fellowship Training: Current Requirements and Educational Research.

Concerns have previously been raised as to whether training programs are ensuring that nephrology fellows achieve competence in the procedural skills required for independent practice. We sought to review the current requirements for procedural training as well as educational research pertaining to achieving competence in the core nephrology procedures of nontunneled (temporary) hemodialysis catheter insertion and percutaneous kidney biopsy. At this time, there is no universal approach to procedural training and assessment during nephrology fellowship.

How to Sustain Change and Support Continuous Quality Improvement.

To achieve sustainable change, quality improvement initiatives must become the new way of working rather than something added on to routine clinical care. However, most organizational change is not maintained. In this next article in this Moving Points in Nephrology feature on quality improvement, we provide health care professionals with strategies to sustain and support quality improvement.

How to Begin a Quality Improvement Project.

Quality improvement involves a combined effort among health care staff and stakeholders to diagnose and treat problems in the health care system. However, health care professionals often lack training in quality improvement methods, which makes it challenging to participate in improvement efforts. This article familiarizes health care professionals with how to begin a quality improvement project.

How to Measure and Interpret Quality Improvement Data.

This article will demonstrate how to conduct a quality improvement project using the change idea generated in "How To Use Quality Improvement Tools in Clinical Practice: How To Diagnose Solutions to a Quality of Care Problem" by Dr. Ziv Harel and colleagues in this Moving Points feature. This change idea involves the introduction of a nurse educator into a CKD clinic with a goal of increasing rates of patients performing dialysis independently at home (home hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis).

How to Diagnose Solutions to a Quality of Care Problem.

To change a particular quality of care outcome within a system, quality improvement initiatives must first understand the causes contributing to the outcome. After the causes of a particular outcome are known, changes can be made to address these causes and change the outcome. Using the example of home dialysis (home hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis), this article within this Moving Points feature on quality improvement will provide health care professionals with the tools necessary to analyze the steps contributing to certain outcomes in health care quality and develop ideas that will ultimately lead to their resolution.

Benefits of a transfer clinic in adolescent and young adult kidney transplant patients.

Background: Adolescent and young adult kidney transplant recipients have worse graft outcomes than older and younger age groups. Difficulties in the process of transition, defined as the purposeful, planned movement of adolescents with chronic health conditions from child to adult-centered health care systems, may contribute to this. Improving the process of transition may improve adherence post-transfer to adult care services.

Hyperchloremic Metabolic Acidosis due to Cholestyramine: A Case Report and Literature Review.

Cholestyramine is a bile acid sequestrant that has been used in the treatment of hypercholesterolemia, pruritus due to elevated bile acid levels, and diarrhea due to bile acid malabsorption. This medication can rarely cause hyperchloremic nonanion gap metabolic acidosis, a complication featured in this report of an adult male with concomitant acute kidney injury. This case emphasizes the caution that must be taken in prescribing cholestyramine to patients who may also be volume depleted, in renal failure, or taking spironolactone.

Performance of Temporary Hemodialysis Catheter Insertion by Nephrology Fellows and Attending Nephrologists.

Background And Objectives: Concerns have been raised about nephrology fellows' skills in inserting temporary hemodialysis catheters. Less is known about temporary hemodialysis catheter insertion skills of attending nephrologists supervising these procedures. The aim of this study was to compare baseline temporary hemodialysis catheter insertion skills of attending nephrologists with the skills of nephrology fellows before and after a simulation-based mastery learning (SBML) intervention.