Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Kidney disease is one of those things in which there may not be any signs
that the patient may pick up on. But what we can provide is the biochemical evidence
that toxin removal may not be occurring with the same efficiency as it previously was.
If you look at patients who are in dialysis units throughout the US, 70 percent of the
people who are now in dialysis, had either diabetes or hypertension as the cause of their
kidney failure. So, we are very much interested in determining what are the factors that contribute
to my kidney disease and how might I impact those. What I think makes UVA nephrology a
leader in treatment of chronic kidney disease or acute kidney injury, is that we're able
to offer the strength of the university's nephrology division to multiple locations.
We have a chronic kidney disease clinic in Augusta, we have one in Orange, we have one
at Piedmont Nephrology here in Charlottesville, separate from our kidney center here in the
West Complex. These are all faculty people in those locations, who participate in the
research, who do all of those things. And so, all of those locations are able to then
draw upon the same resources that you would have in a single location. I believe that
the main goal of UVA nephrology is very much quality and quality can be improved by actually
educating the recipients of care the as to the rational for providing their care. So
it's identifying the contributing factors and then being in agreement as to the strategy
for treatment and the patient has an opportunity to have some input into that then data shows
that we're going to have a better outcome.