The impact of the Starting dialysis on Time, At home on the Right Therapy (START) project on the use of peritoneal dialysis

Peritoneal dialysis (PD) is actively promoted, but increasing PD utilisation is difficult. The objective of this study was to determine if the Starting dialysis on Time, At Home, on the Right Therapy (START) project was associated with an increase in the proportion of dialysis patients receiving PD within 6 months of starting therapy.

Consecutive patients over age 18, with end-stage kidney failure, who started dialysis between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2018 in the province of Alberta, Canada. Programmes were provided with high-quality data about the individual steps in the process of care that drive PD utilisation that were used to identify problem areas, design and implement interventions to address them, and then evaluate whether those interventions had impact. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients receiving PD within 6 months of starting dialysis. Secondary outcomes included hospitalisation, death or probability of transfer to haemodialysis (HD). Interrupted time series methodology was used to evaluate the impact of the quality improvement initiative on the primary and secondary outcomes.

A total of 1962 patients started dialysis during the study period. Twenty-seven per cent of incident patients received PD at baseline, and there was a 5.4% (95% confidence interval: 1.5–9.2) increase in the use of PD in the province immediately after implementation. There were no changes in the rates of hospitalisation, death or probability of transfer to HD after the introduction of START.

The approach used in the START project was associated with an increase in the use of PD in a setting with high baseline utilisation.