The Development of a Virtual Ward for Patients with End-Stage Renal Disease

Abstract

It has been demonstrated that chronic kidney disease sufferers present to the emergency department and require hospitalization at a much higher rate than the general population. Due to the resulting strain on our healthcare system, being able to monitor patients’ well-being in a home setting with the goal of predicting these visits would be invaluable in preventing health deterioration in these patients, and also in preventing these emergency visits. By outfitting chronic kidney disease patients with wearable technology devices such as the “fitbit” we aim to measure signs of well-being in the patient (such as heart rate, sleep patterns and physical activity) in combination with well-established symptom surveys we aim to create a set of criteria which make up an early warning system for emergency department visits and hospitalizations. This prospective study will look at the feasibility of utilizing this technology to track patient well-being and also at determining if the data collected provides any predictive value in determining if patients will visit the emergency department or require hospitalization