Baxter International has announced new data indicating the use of its Sharesource remote patient management platform with an automated peritoneal dialysis cycler may improve the clinical effectiveness of dialysis care for kidney patients by extending their time on home therapies by 3.4 months.
The new data were presented during the World Congress of Nephrology (WCN’22; 24–27 February, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) in an abstract session entitled: “Time on therapy in automated peritoneal dialysis patients with and without remote patient monitoring program: a propensity score matching cohort study”. The retrospective study included nearly 1,500 home peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients receiving care at Baxter Renal Care Services clinics in Colombia and took place between 2017 and 2019, with a two-year follow up in 2021.
Sharesource, which Baxter says allows healthcare professionals to monitor their patients’ home dialysis treatments, and then remotely adjust therapy without the need for patients to make unplanned visits to the clinic, has also been shown to reduce hospitalisations and costs, travel to clinical facilities, and wait times, according to the company.
The ‘time on therapy’ study presented at WCN’22 was a retrospective cohort study of incident patients (defined as those who reached and continued automated PD from day 90), comparing outcomes for those receiving automated PD with or without remote patient management. The methodology, according to Baxter, included time until death, with censorship for technique failure, kidney transplantation, treatment suspension, abandoned therapy or transferred to a different clinic.
Using the propensity score matching procedure, an adequate balance in the predictive variables was achieved. The results indicated a statistically significant difference in the time on therapy, which was 18.9 months in the group on remote patient management versus 15.5 months in the group without. There was no statistically significant difference in the mortality rate, Baxter claims.
“Time on therapy is one of the most important indicators of clinical effectiveness and quality improvement for home kidney patients using remote patient management,” said Peter Rutherford, vice president, Medical Affairs, Baxter Renal Care. “Sharesource is a valuable tool in enabling healthcare professionals’ visibility and timely support of their home patients, which is a key factor in a growing body of clinical evidence that the digital health platform is supporting enhanced care.”
