News & Events
Discover new information and educational offerings that we provide. Explore our newsletters, blogs and upcoming webinars/conference calls.
Contents:
Amgen funds Website Redesign
Thanks to the generous support of Amgen, the DPC Education Center just completed an extensive upgrade and redesign of its website. The upgrade allowed for a more responsive design and easier to use navigation among many other improvements.
Racial Disparities in Kidney Transplantation Rates Eased By System’s New Rules
Changes to the system that distributes deceased donor kidneys nationwide helped increase the rates of transplants for African American and Hispanics dialysis patients on the waiting list, according to a new study from Johns Hopkins University. The system’s old algorithm originally gave priority to patients based on how long they had been on the list. In December 2014, the algorithm was changed to give priority to patients based on how long they had been on dialysis. The goal of the changes was to increase transplant accessibility to minorities. To determine whether the changes had any effect, researchers examined transplant records from nearly two years before the new rules were in place to nearly 10 months [...]
DPC Education Center Staff Member Transplant Story Featured in Television News Report
Last summer, DPC Education Manager Joanne Smith successfully donated a kidney to one of her patients. The story was featured in a report done by Philadelphia-based ABC affiliate WPVI. Learn more about the kidney transplant process, and save the date for the next education call: Transplant 101 on February 17th.
Report Identifies Positive News on Kidney Disease in the US, Yet Challenges Remain
The annual data report from the United States Renal Data System (USRDS) reveals both positive and negative trends in kidney disease in the United States. Positive news includes fewer deaths among kidney patients and an increasing use of home dialysis treatments. Ongoing challenges include increasing medical costs for dialysis treatment and an overall increase in the size of the dialysis population. Highlights from the report include: Fewer deaths were reported among dialysis and kidney transplant patients in 2013, dropping by 28 percent and 40 percent, respectively, since 1996. Prevalence of end-stage kidney disease—the last stage of chronic kidney disease when the kidneys can no longer remove waste and excess water from the body, and dialysis [...]
