Low follow-up kidney testing after hospital discharge with moderate to severe AKI, requires improvement

A study of Canadian hospitalizations from 2007–2019 show that over 75% of patients with moderate to severe acute kidney injury (AKI) do not get appropriate follow-up kidney health testing after hospital discharge.

A study in Alberta, Canada, examined care received by over 20,000 hospitalized with AKI during hospitalization and after discharge between 2009 and 2017. The results, published in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases (AJKD), showed that a low proportion of patients with moderate to severe AKI were seen by a kidney specialist during hospitalization or within 90 days after discharge.

Less than 25% of AKI patients had their kidney function monitored with both blood and urine tests within 90 days of discharge. Additionally, about half of AKI survivors with chronic kidney disease (CKD) were prescribed guideline recommended medications for CKD, within 15 months after discharge. There is potential to improve health care delivery to these patients both in hospital and after hospital discharge.