Kidney Care Partners Announces Plans to Develop National "Blueprint" on Quality

March "Summit" Aims to Identify Quality Improvement Goals and Develop Recommendations for Medicare's Quality Incentive Program

WASHINGTON, March 19, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Kidney Care Partners –  the nation's largest kidney care coalition consisting of patient advocates, dialysis professionals, care providers, researchers and manufacturers dedicated to working together to improve quality of care for individuals with end-stage and chronic kidney disease – announced plans to develop a strategic  "blueprint" on quality.  The blueprint is intended to develop recommendations for Medicare's quality incentive payment system (QIP) while also identifying internal quality improvement drivers and research priorities.

KCP will convene a national "summit" meeting on March 28 to discuss quality issues and develop the community's blueprint.  The summit meeting agenda will track closely with the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) National Quality Strategy (NQS) aims for better care, healthy people and communities, and affordable care. The Blueprint, once final, will be made publicly available as a report.

"The kidney community's Quality Blueprint initiative follows KCP's recent Performance Excellence and Accountability in Kidney Care (PEAK) initiative, launched in June 2009, which to date has reduced mortality by more than 12 percent among first-year dialysis patients," remarked Ron Kuerbitz, chairman of Kidney Care Partners. "The PEAK Campaign focused on patient education and key clinical care activities to achieve its goal, including case management, nutrition, anemia management, dialysis adequacy, catheter use, and psychological and social support."

KCP has also been engaged in the development of quality metrics, some of which have been endorsed by the National Quality Forum. 

While the March 28^th Summit is closed to the public and media, a statement by KCP summarizing progress and next steps from the day-long summit will be released the following day, since the work session ends late on the 28th.   The final document is estimated to be completed summer 2013, and will be made public at that time with a release and media availability.

SOURCE Kidney Care Partners

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