Chronic Kidney Disease Clinical Decision Support

To prevent serious chronic kidney disease (CKD) complications such as end-stage renal disease and cardiovascular events, better strategies are needed to identify, treat, and refer CKD patients seen in primary care clinics. This project expands an existing and successful Web-based clinical decision support (CDS) system to include key elements of CKD care and rigorously assesses the impact of this intervention on quality of CKD care for patients seen in primary care settings, including better recognition of CKD, better management of blood pressure and glucose, and more timely referral to nephrologists when appropriate. This low-cost and highly scalable intervention has high potential to improve CKD care and translate massive public and private sector investments in health informatics into tangible health benefits for large numbers of patients with CKD.