Silent Until It's Not: Why We Can't Wait Another Day to Transform Kidney Care

We must prioritize three critical areas: education, innovation, and evidence.

1. Education: Redefining Where and How Dialysis Happens. 
   We need to think about the care experience holistically, and how it can fit more easily into people’s lives.

   • The option to do dialysis at home, overnight, while sleeping can provide patients with more freedom to focus on what matters to them. Yet home dialysis remains significantly under-utilized because patients simply don't know enough about this option.
   • In addition to raising awareness, we must facilitate ongoing training and education for both patients and clinical teams.

    

2. Innovation: Leveraging Technology to Support Patients Where They Are. 
   As we invest in innovation over the next 5 years and beyond, we will focus on building:
   • Infrastructure that keeps patients connected with their clinical teams remotely
   • Technology that powers timely insights and updates throughout the treatment process to enable more informed care decisions; and

   • Services that enable proactive support and technical assistance in critical moments.

      

3. Evidence: Building the Case for Systemic Change. 
   Education and innovation cannot occur in a vacuum.
   • We need to continuously evaluate and validate the impact of these efforts to demonstrate the effects on patient care, quality of life, and overall health economics.
   • This is how we will drive programmatic support and create an environment that facilitates home dialysis access – both from a policy perspective and a care delivery standpoint.

The time for bold action is now. Our discussions left me more convinced than ever that breaking down the barriers to home dialysis requires collaboration across organizations, sectors, and geographies. We are eager to continue these vital conversations, and partner with stakeholders to drive innovation and adoption of better therapy options for kidney patients.

The bold change we need is simple yet profound: with education and awareness, supported by a robust technological ecosystem, we can help patients understand their care options and how to better navigate the challenges of chronic kidney disease.

We are at a seminal moment and cannot afford to wait. If we don't do something different now, we will have missed an opportunity to save human lives. By keeping the patient and provider experience at the center of everything we do, we can extend lives and expand possibilities for millions of people around the world.

Watch my full conversation with Sarah Wells Kocsis from the Milken Institute at the 2025 Concordia Annual Summit above.