The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced earlier this month that the Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation will be contributing its capabilities to support the “Advancing American Kidney Health Initiative.”
Nearly 100,000 Americans are waiting on the list to receive a kidney transplant, with kidney disease ranking as the ninth leading cause of death in America, costing Medicare $114 billion a year. PCCI is focused on improving healthcare for vulnerable populations by using advance data science and clinical experts and will now advance efforts to learn more about kidney health.
With 37 million patients suffering from chronic kidney disease and more than 726,000, who have end-stage renal disease, HHS is seeking to improve the lives of those with unstable kidney health. PCCI is contributing to this initiative through a grant to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center’s Dr. Miquel Vasquez and specifically by applying its proficiency with advanced data science to electronic health records. This should aid at-risk patient identification and help develop predictive modeling. In an effort to prevent and mitigate kidney disease, this initiative is aimed keeping patients out of hospitals and helping to find different ways to define and manage kidney disease.
“We are very proud to contribute PCCI’s unique combination of advanced data science and clinical expertise to this important initiative,” said PCCI’s President and CEO, Steve Miff, PhD via release. “This program, under Dr. Vasquez, the grant principle, is critical to millions of Americans who are suffering from kidney disease. We are excited that PCCI’s experience applying healthcare data in clinical settings with veterans and other groups prone to kidney disease is aiding the kidney health initiative.”
With the goal of transforming the way that kidney disease is prevented and treated, members of PCCI’s advanced analytics and clinical teams are also participating in the initiative’s research studies and work groups.