Kidney Thinking. The blog from Think Kidneys

The KQuIP/ UKRR Regional Day is a one off event hosted within the region and brings together the renal community including medical, multi-disciplinary colleagues and patients to consider data provided by the UK Renal Registry, Public Health England and NHSBT with a focus on quality improvement The KQuIP/UKRR North West Regional day, led by Dr Smeeta Sinha on 31st January 2018 brought together the North West renal community  from Merseyside,…

Measurement and Understanding Workstream, KQuIP Quality improvement (QI) frequently measures how variables change either: To identify and respond to unwanted variation or To measure the impact of implementing a change into day-to-day healthcare practice. It is often used as a bridge between research and day-to-day practice, observing the true effect of implementing an intervention into the real world. Often changes can lead to improvement in clinical…

As someone who has tried to improve care for kidney patients via quality improvement methods, I was very happy to write a blog about the role of context. Basically, because boy do I wish I’d understood it earlier! One of my first roles as a new consultant was to act as Director for a QI project to reduce infections from central lines in Salford Royal. For…

Over the last few months, the Measurement and Understanding workstream have been identifying and collecting information on identified measurement tools that could be used within quality improvement projects in the renal setting. When initially embarking on this project, we decided we wanted measurement tools that were relevant to renal patients; rigorous and valid providing accurate measurement; and relevant to quality improvement interventions and projects. We started…

I’m always enthusiastic and motivated after attending a national conference focussed on renal dialysis access. Witnessing the opportunities for nurses networking from this kind of event are incredible, as you may observe and learn that there are regional differences on how haemodialysis access standards are applied to our own local trust practice even though there are regulatory bodies or national protocols dictated specifically on standards of…