Baxter Home Dialysis Study Associates Sharesource With 39% Reduction in Hospitalization Rates for Colombian Patients

Baxter International Inc. (NYSE:BAX), a global innovator in renal care, announced today new data associating the use of its automated peritoneal dialysis (APD) cyclers and the Sharesource remote patient management platform with a 39% reduction in hospitalizations for home PD patients receiving care at Baxter Renal Care Services clinics in Colombia. The data also show the use of Sharesource is associated with a 54% reduction in length of hospital stay for home dialysis patients requiring inpatient care.

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The study, “Remote Patient Monitoring Program in Automated Peritoneal Dialysis: Impact on Hospitalizations,” recently published in Peritoneal Dialysis International. It compared PD patients managed with Sharesource to those not using the remote patient management platform at home.

“We firmly believe patients should have access to the therapy options that best meet their clinical and lifestyle needs. We also believe significantly more patients can benefit from home therapy than do today,” said Laura Angelini, general manager, Baxter’s Renal Care business. “This study illustrates how innovation, like Sharesource, can assist more patients in successfully performing therapy at home.”

Sharesource is the most widely adopted telehealth platform globally for home dialysis and has helped manage approximately 10 million PD treatments in more than 40 countries. The remote patient management platform allows healthcare providers to securely view their patients’ recently completed home dialysis-related treatment data that is automatically collected after each PD session. Healthcare providers can then act on this information by remotely adjusting their patients’ home device settings without requiring them to make additional trips to the clinic.

The retrospective cohort study included 126 propensity matched patients using APD therapy with or without remote patient management through 28 different Baxter Renal Care Services clinics in Colombia. Propensity matching was used to help control for potential confounding variables. Hospitalization rates and hospitalization days were recorded over one year.

While the observational study limits decisive causality for the reduced hospitalizations, it supports the idea that increased visibility to accurate adherence and therapy data can help clinicians respond swiftly to potential problems and reduce the need for extra visits to the clinic or hospital stays for patients. Additional recent data supports Sharesource’s ability to assist healthcare providers with early detection and intervention of catheter issues,^1,2,3,4 peritonitis,⁵ and adherence-related complications. ^6,7,8