The PIRP project (Prevenzione Insufficienza Renale Progressiva): how to integrate hospital and community maintenance treatment for chronic kidney disease

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) represents a global health burden with great economic impact on healthcare and therefore it requires appropriate interventions by Health Care Systems. The PIRP (Prevenzione Insufficienza Renale Progressiva) project is endorsed and funded by the Emilia-Romagna Regional Health Board and involves all the Nephrology Units of the Emilia-Romagna Region (Italy). The project has a predominantly clinical purpose and is expected to bring about a continuous quality improvement in the treatment of patients with CKD. Its aims are to intercept patients in an early phase of CKD, to delay their illness progression and to prevent cardiovascular complications. An integrated care pathway involving nephrologists, general practitioners (GPs) and other specialists has been created to identify patients to whom ambulatory care targeted on effective, efficient pharmaceutical and dietary treatment as well as on lifestyle modifications is subsequently provided. With the cooperation of GPs, in its 13 years of activity the project identified and followed up more than 25,000 CKD patients, who attended the Nephrology units with more than 100,000 visits. The effects of a closer and joint monitoring of CKD patients by GPs and nephrologists can be quantified by the reduction of the mean annual GFR decline (average annual CKD-EPI change: − 0.34 ml/min), and by the decrease in the overall incidence of patients who annually started dialysis in the Emilia-Romagna Region, that dropped from 218.6 (× million) in 2006 to 197.5 (× million) in 2016, corresponding to about 100 cases.