Think Kidneys is pleased to report that in line with the requirement to report warning stage test results for Acute Kidney Injury, data from acute trust pathology labs is now being published on the Think Kidneys website.
The data is submitted by pathology labs in Trusts to the UK Renal Registry and is in response to the Patient Safety Alert issued in June 2014 by NHS England on standardising the early identification of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI). The pathology labs have implemented the new nationally agreed algorithm into their Laboratory Information Management Systems which identifies potential AKI test results.
The patient safety alert was issued to ensure labs are able to provide a timely and consistent approach to the detection and diagnosis of patients with AKI. The lab system is able to send the result to the patient management systems so that detection is faster and treatment can commence sooner. The aim of the alert is to improve the statistics that shown that one in five emergency admissions into hospital are associated with AKI which prolongs inpatient stay and is associated with around 100,000 deaths annually. In 2009 the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) estimated that between a quarter and one third of cases could potentially be prevented through early detection.