Everybody's business.
The provision of specialist-level care for patients with chronic kidney disease in rural and remote areas is a significant challenge. There are well-recognized barriers to care in these areas but in addition there is a widely held view that the responsibility for chronic kidney disease falls to nephrologists, despite the lack of nephrologists in remote regions and the high burden of disease. This article describes how in Central Australia specialists and remote-based primary carers have adapted their usual roles and found new ways of working together to provide high-quality specialist-level care for remote chronic kidney disease patients. We are evolving a model where chronic kidney disease is no longer nephrologists' business but is everybody's business, with primary carers providing much of the routine specialist-level care.
O'Sullivan
Ciara
C
Community Physician for Central Australia, Northern Territory Department of Health and Community Services, Alice Springs. Ciara.O'Sullivan@nt.gov.au
Brady
Stephen J
SJ
Lawton
Paul D
PD
Love
Cathy M
CM
D003153:Community Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005194:Family Practice; D006801:Humans; D007676:Kidney Failure, Chronic / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy*; D009398:Nephrology; D015876:Northern Territory; D019035:Rural Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*