Early identification of chronic kidney disease: it is time to enhance patient and population-based informatics tools for general practitioners

Abstract

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a global public health issue that can lead to several complications such as, kidney failure, cerebro/cardiovascular disease, and death. There is a well-documented “awareness gap” among general practitioners (GPs) to recognize CKD. As shown by estimates stemming from the Health Search Database (HSD) of the Italian College of General Practitioners and Primary Care (SIMG), no substantial changes were observed in terms of the incident rate of CKD over the last 10 years. Namely, 10.3–9.5 per 1000 new cases of CKD were estimated in 2012 and 2021, respectively. Thus, strategies to reduce under-recognized cases are needed. Early identification of CKD might improve patient’s quality of life and clinical outcomes. In this context, patient- and population-based informatic tools may support both opportunistic and systematic screening of patients at greater risk of CKD. As such, the new effective pharmacotherapies for CKD would be proficiently administered. To this aim, these two complimentary tools have been developed and will be further implemented by GPs. The effectiveness of these instruments in identifying the condition at an early stage and reducing the burden of CKD on the national health system needs to be verified according to the new regulations on medical device (MDR: (EU) 2017/745).

Keywords:

• Computer-based tools
• clinical governance
• clinical decision support system
• primary care

Transparency

Declaration of funding

This article was funded by Genomedics Srl which has the ownership and copyright of MilleDSS technology.

Declaration of financial/other relationships

Lapi F. and Marconi E. provided consultancies in protocol preparation for epidemiological studies and data analyses for AstraZeneca, Mundipharma, MSD. Medea G. and Cricelli C. provided clinical consultancies for AstraZeneca, Mundipharma, MSD. Cricelli I is an employee of Genomedics Srl. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Author contributions

Cricelli I., Piccinocchi C., Medea G., Cricelli C. and Lapi F. conceptualized the study. Cricelli I., Marconi E. and Lapi F. wrote the manuscript. Lapi F and Cricelli C. are responsible for the integrity of the work. All aspects of the study were led by the authors.

Acknowledgements

None.

Notes

i MilleDSS is a registered trademark of Genomedics Srl - Florence, Italy.

ii GPG is a registered trademark of Genomedics Srl - Florence, Italy.