The very successful AAKP Patient Plan©, which has already benefited numerous patients, is the first part of AAKP's overall plan to help patients and their families in the coming year. The second part of AAKP's plan is the Quality of Life Plan. This plan is designed to focus attention nationally on the issues that affect quality of life for all kidney patients.

As the American Association of Kidney Patients prepares its patient agenda for 2001, we focus on three key areas of care.

• ACCESSIBILITY

• AFFORDABILITY  

• EFFECTIVENESS

For the benefit of all patients, we believe that legislation, regulatory efforts and the renal community must be focused on these important patient concerns. AAKP has defined these three needs in order to review how they directly affect fellow patients.

ACCESSIBILITY

This deals with the ability of all patients to have access to each available modality. It goes beyond the obvious concern that hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis and transplantation are not reviewed and offered to every patient. We define accessibility to include such items as proximity of the facility to a patient's home, work and travel needs, transportation, hours of operation and waiting time for a transplant.

AFFORDABILITY

In defining affordability, AAKP believes that several relevant issues must be reviewed to ensure that patients are able to afford treatment. Most importantly, AAKP looks at insurance, primarily Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO), exclusions to patients and their treatment.  Such issues include the costs of non-covered Medicare expenses for patients, insurance costs and the cost of medications.

EFFECTIVENESS

Effectiveness is extremely important to patients as it determines the quality of health and quality of life of patients. AAKP's concern here is that patients achieve optimal longevity while enjoying a high quality of life. This term is probably the easiest to define, as it tends to be the most clinical of the three. Are patients receiving adequate treatment? For instance, do patients have adequate dialysis, anemia management, blood pressure control and nutrition? Effectiveness also considers quality of life issues such as the ability to be rehabilitated, employment and participation in desired social and family activities.

As we spend the year working on all three areas, AAKP will be extremely concerned as to how these areas are treated with regards to modality, race, age and co-morbid conditions. For instance, are there racial disparities with regard to treatment choice?

As a patient, it is very important that you develop a keen sense of what is happening legislatively to Medicare. If you have Internet access, subscribe to the AAKP Renal Flash, AAKP's monthly newsletter, to receive our latest news, visit our web site at www.aakp.org and call us if you have any questions.

Washington Report, aakpRENALIFE, Vol. 16, No. 4, January 2001

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