Patients with lupus nephritis (LN) have a 26‐fold higher mortality rate compared with their peers. Kidney biopsy, the gold standard diagnostic method for LN, may have an average wait time of more than 50 days. Other gaps in quality process measures during LN visits have also been reported. A subspecialty multidisciplinary clinic (MDC) can provide better care and quality in LN. This study from HIP Investigator Dr. Christie Bartels aimed to examine how an LN MDC impacted time to biopsy, time to treatment, and other quality measures.
The study included all validated patients with LN who underwent diagnostic kidney biopsies between the 2011 to 2017 pre‐MDC period and the 2018 to 2020 post‐MDC period. It found that wait times to diagnose LN decreased by 40% and higher quality measure performance was noted after establishing an LN MDC.
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