Fresenius Medical Care North America Highlights Home Growth and Telehealth Success
WALTHAM, Mass., April 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Fresenius Medical Care North America (FMCNA), the nation’s leading provider of kidney care products and services, announced record growth of home therapies. The company also announced additional steps it has taken to expand telehealth and other technologies to support patients during the response to COVID-19, including:
- Record adoption of virtual visits between patients, care teams, and physicians with more than 22,000 remote visits logged in the past two weeks.
- An update to ProviderHub, the company’s connected health platform, allowing physicians to better monitor home patients.
- New functionality added to Acumen 2.0, the company’s next-generation EHR software, for all physicians, including:
- Patient screening for COVID-19 in MyChart and physician workflows.
- Telehealth workflow added with 7,000 virtual visits in the past two weeks.
The number of FMCNA patients on home dialysis, whether home hemodialysis (HHD) or peritoneal dialysis (PD), has increased almost 15 percent during the past year*, a record rate of growth in home modalities that is nine times the growth rate of patients treated in-center. Additionally, HHD has increased 40 percent in the past year, and the company saw a 25 percent increase in home trainings conducted in Q1 2020 compared to Q1 2019.
“Our success in growing home treatments is a direct result of our commitment to improving patient and physician education, and investing in technology to improve the home experience,” said Bill Valle, Chief Executive Officer of Fresenius Medical Care North America. “More than ever during this challenging time, the impact of home dialysis and telehealth technologies are clear. We are committed to ensuring that every patient who has the ability and desire to receive dialysis treatment at home has the opportunity to do so.”
As a result of a presidential executive order announced in July 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has encouraged the shift to home therapies. Since their merger with NxStage in February 2019, FMCNA has already achieved these additional home dialysis initiatives and milestones:
- Launched theHub, a connected health platform with enhanced remote patient monitoring, which has been shown to improve patients outcomes.
- Added hundreds of new direct patient care staff who are specialized in home therapies.
- Educated 57,000 patients with chronic kidney disease or end stage renal disease about home dialysis with the help of almost 200 Kidney Care Advocates.
- Provided more than 70,000 learning sessions to dialysis staff and nephrologists in live workshops and online courses through the Advanced Renal Education Program.
- Made a major investment in BioIntelliSense, which recently announced FDA 510(k) clearance of the BioSticker on-body sensor for scalable remote care.
- Invested in new significant manufacturing and distribution capacity in Knoxville, Tenn. to accommodate increased production of peritoneal dialysis solution.
The company continues to offer meaningful, educational information to the public through its Fresenius Kidney Care patient-facing website and its Fresenius Medical Care North America website. For more details on the company’s response to COVID-19 visit here.
*Measured by the one year period from March 1, 2019 to March 1, 2020.
About Fresenius Medical Care North America
Fresenius Medical Care North America (FMCNA) is the premier healthcare company focused on providing the highest quality care to people with renal and other chronic conditions. Through its industry-leading network of dialysis facilities and outpatient cardiac and vascular labs, Fresenius Medical Care North America provides coordinated healthcare services at pivotal care points for hundreds of thousands of chronically ill customers throughout the continent. As the world’s largest fully integrated renal company, it offers specialty pharmacy and laboratory services, and manufactures and distributes the most comprehensive line of dialysis equipment, disposable products, and renal pharmaceuticals. For more information, visit the FMCNA website at https://fmcna.com.
Media Contact:
Fresenius Medical Care North America
Brad Puffer
Corporate Communications
Brad.Puffer@fmc-na.com
(781) 699-3331
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SOURCE Fresenius Medical Care Holdings, Inc.
