Hopewell Health

Thousands of Americans will receive a devastating kidney disease diagnosis this year – news that will forever change their life. But thankfully, there are family members and caregivers to lean on, and a supportive community of dedicated champions leading the way forward – everyday heroes doing all they can in the fight against kidney disease. That’s what #KidneyHeroesGivingDay is all about. Honor your hero: https://bit.ly/4dPSota Thanks to a group of generous, supporters, your first monthly gift will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $20,000 meaning your impact on lifechanging research, advocacy and treatment will be DOUBLED. We can’t bring an end to kidney disease in a single day, but every gift is a step forward and a step closer to the next lifechanging breakthrough. Show your support and honor your hero before midnight: https://bit.ly/4dPSota

#KidneyHeroesGivingDay is when we celebrate the lifechanging difference that heroes make for people with kidney disease. Honor your hero: https://bit.ly/4dqHTfJ

My next Signal takes a closer look at the latest antitrust probe into large dialysis companies and the shifting role of non-competes in kidney care. A recent POLITICO article provides helpful background around topics like NCAs in dialysis and impacts on the adoption of home dialysis technologies. This is an important discussion, so I'd love to hear from you. If you have something you'd like to share, whether it's an anecdote, comment or question for other readers, please leave a comment or send me a message. H/t to Tom Mueller for sharing the article last week. https://lnkd.in/e95a23JF

"If you could build a transplant-focused journey for people with kidney disease, what would it look like?" I had a chance to hear quite a few people answer this question at ATC in Philly earlier this week. Patients, clinicians, scientists, founders, industry leaders, and even a few familiar faces along the way. Kathleen Belmonte is one of those familiar, fearless humans whose team is on a mission to remove every barrier to kidney transplantation. She and her team at Hopewell Health are redesigning the transplant patient experience by focusing on many of the systemic barriers that too often get in the way of patients knowing about their transplant options in the first place. I've been lucky enough to get to see and hear that vision firsthand through Redesign Health, and it's one of the reasons I remain optimistic about this space. (We snapped the pic below on Day 5, after the VBC session!) 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬: As I think about the big takeaways and questions from ATC 2024, here's what stood out to me that might help us begin to answer that first question up above. Let's start by understanding the current patient journey in the transplant system (see the "subway map" illustration below). That means starting from how and when they consider transplant in the first place, all the way through ensuring long term patient and graft survival. A great comment by Amy D. Waterman during Q&A after this session pointed out the need to start even earlier, with how earlier stage CKD patients find out about transplant in the first place. • What does that full map of possibilities, pathways, and stakeholders look like? Then, how do we engage people at the right time, in the right way, across that journey? • Can we get to a place where patients only need one new kidney for life (Mona Doshi spoke about this)? • How do we get more patients transplanted earlier in the kidney disease process? • How will we alleviate health inequities in access to transplant? • How will we prioritize transparency and shared decision making in organ acceptance decision making? (Prince Anand spoke about this) • How do we reduce the organ discard rate to maximize organ utilization? • How do we focus on longer-term (i.e. > 5-year) graft survival and optimal dialysis starts (or conservative management) for patients with advanced CKD in a transplant? *** What questions would you add to this list? It turns out wearing my "member of the press" hat as the storyteller-in-chief at Signals From [Space] allows me to experience these clinical meetings in a whole new light. It opens up conversations, connections, and collaborations that I didn't even know existed six or twelve months ago. I want to thank the American Society of Transplantation for welcoming Signals and for putting on a stellar meeting of the minds, hearts, and kidneys. I can't wait to share the full scoop, key takeaways and follow-up interviews on Signals.