Utility of Telemedicine in the Follow-Up of Patients in Peritoneal Dialysis

Study Background \& Rationale: (background information including previous studies as applicable )

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a growing problem world-wide which increases in parallel with some risk factors such as chronic diseases, mainly diabetes mellitus and hypertension. CKD imposes elevated costs both from the standpoint of human resources and hospital infrastructure, and above all in the economic aspect. In the United States, the cost of CKD equals more than 30 billion USD a year to care for a population of 450,000 patients, which means an elevated cost per patient per year. Mexico does not have precise statistics but it is estimated that the burden of the disease is higher than that faced by other health institutions in any of the therapeutic modalities. For IMSS, chronic kidney disease is found among the six diseases that cause the greatest expenses, datum that is magnified when considering that the current population in any dialysis program consists of only 60,000 patients. On the other hand, the number of nephrologists is insufficient to care for the patients, considering that the proportion recommended is 100 patients per nephrologist in dialysis programs. In IMSS, these proportions are greatly surpassed, and the need to increase human resources or use alternative technologies to ease the task is evident.

Since its introduction at the end of the 70's, peritoneal dialysis (PD) has been consolidated in many countries as a viable, long-term substitutive therapy for renal function. Frequency of use of PD in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) has broad variations, from zero in some regions of France and Japan to 40% in the United Kingdom, 60% in Mexico, and 80% in Hong Kong.

In terms of outcomes, PD and hemodialysis (HD) are comparable. Mortality in PD is similar and even less than in HD, and the greatest advantage of PD over HD is its home application and simplified technique, since it gives the patient total autonomy for daily life. This advantage is even greater with nocturnal automated systems, or automated PD (APD).

In recent years, the concept of "telemedicine" has been developed, term that is used to name all electronic transfers of data, audio and video between the health team and patients, with the purpose of consultation, examination or performing long-distance medical procedures.

The facility of electronic communication has empowered the advantages of PD; with the use of telemedicine systems the rate of hospitalization has been reduced from 5.7 to 2.2, resulting in lower costs. One worry behind these efforts is knowing if the patients are prepared to join these systems. Luckily, the results of some surveys indicate that the degree of acceptance is high.

Telemedicine systems applied to PD include telephone devices with connection to land phones, tablets or teleconferences via the network. In Japan, telemedicine is used to monitor blood pressure, heart frequency, urinary volume or serum glucose, and in Spain it has been used for teleconferences, for clinical visits and audiovisual presentations to re-train patients. In Canada, contact through tablets favored communication between patients and health staff and, through the introduction of alerts in structured interviews; a significant number of hospital visits were avoided. In addition, they obtained a high level of patient satisfaction with the system.

Even when APD is an effective, safe procedure for treating patients with ESRD, the nephrologist depends on an important number of data that the patient should offer in order to write a prescription adjusted to the clinical conditions of each case. Some very illustrative aspects are, for example:

1. Ultrafiltration and total liquid removal (dialysis + urine) are crucial data to prescribe osmolarity and glucose content in dialysate. According to the clinical practice guides, there should be a minimum volume of 1.0 L/day, without forgetting that each mL of ultrafiltration is associated with the absorption of an important amount of glucose, with the consequent metabolic cost.
2. The volume of infused liquid should be adjusted to the body surface area of the patient, and should take into account that the total volume in the peritoneum has an additional increase from the ultrafiltration obtained. This should be achieved without exceeding the patient's tolerance and without forcing the generation of inflammatory stimuli.
3. In general, treatment adherence is estimated by the monthly consumption of dialysis solutions and patient self-reporting. However, the two procedures contain a large amount of subjectivity.
4. Adjustment or prescription of automated peritoneal dialysis (APD) requires calculation of the effective time of presence of the solutions in the cavity; that is, from the start of infusion to the end of drainage, discounting transit time.

All these data are impossible to obtain in a nocturnal treatment without the support of telemedicine. One aspect of great importance comes from the lack of achieving prescription goals, which negatively impacts clinical outcomes and incurs additional costs for unscheduled doctor visits and treatment of complications that are preventable through closer follow-up, such as the case of fluid overload through lack of ultrafiltration and symptoms of uremic syndrome from insufficient dialysis.

Potentially preventable hospitalization is understood as hospitalizations caused by ambulatory handling. It is about clinical conditions that can be prevented with good handling externally and that are recognized as indicators of efficiency in ambulatory handling. For the case of this project, in which telemedicine is expected to help make dialysis and ultrafiltration more efficient, potentially preventable hospitalizations will be considered in manifestations of uremic syndrome, hyperkalemia, and those derived from liquid overload, such as: edema, hypertension and heart failure.

Before the impossibility of obtaining complete, objective information necessary for the prescription of APD and adequate management of the patient, APD machines have incorporated a telemedicine module that recovers information on movement and volume of dialysis solution, glucose concentration, and in addition to objectively measuring treatment adherence. This new technology is already available, but its use in the "real world" has not been evaluated. Having this information in the investigator's medium is necessary, given that PD treatment predominates, especially in IMSS, which is the institution on which the weight of ESRD in the country rests.