Integrating Specialist and Primary Care in Chronic Disease Management

Alongside efforts to develop new strategies for the early diagnosis and delayed progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD), it remains critical to implement existing interventions effectively. Since the patients who might benefit are asymptomatic and undiagnosed, the tasks of early diagnosis and intervention naturally belong to the primary care practitioners (PCPs) who are in regular contact with these as-yet undiagnosed patients. Despite PCPs ’ familiarity with preventive measures, such as smoking cessation, blood pressure control, and diabetes control, both time constraints and the need to stay up to date with current CKD guidelines and manage competing clinical priorities often pose challenges in achieving optimal CKD outcomes. This requires collaboration between specialists and PCPs, which has worked at small scale but, to our knowledge, not been tried systemwide.
Source: JAMA Internal Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Source Type: research