Partnership with CMS and HRSA addresses national kidney shortage

Children’s National Hospital is proud to announce that it is participating in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA)’s new End-Stage Renal Disease Treatment Choices Learning Collaborative (ETCLC). This effort will focus on addressing kidney disease prevention and treatment, including improved access to kidney transplants in the United States.

The ETCLC will engage transplant centers, Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs), large donor hospitals, patients and donor family members to identify highly effective practices currently in use and spread the use of these practices throughout the organ procurement, kidney care and kidney transplant community to achieve the following three AIMs:

• AIM #1: Increase the number of deceased donor kidneys transplanted
• AIM #2: Decrease the current national discard rate of all procured kidneys
• AIM #3: Increase the percentage of change for kidneys recovered for transplant in the 60-85 Kidney Donor Profile Index score group

The ETCLC brings the potential for collaboration, communication and innovation across geography into reality. By participating in the ETCLC, Children’s National will benefit by:

• the creation of efficiencies and reduction of duplicative efforts in kidney patient care
• exposure to new, innovative ideas regarding the kidney transplant process
• the enhancement of communication and relationship building within the kidney care community
• the application of substantive changes to improve the donation and transplantation system