DaVita Inc. (NYSE: DVA), a leading provider of kidney care services that is committed to improving quality of life for those diagnosed with chronic kidney disease (CKD) today shared a guest post by DaVita® Chief Medical Officer Allen R. Nissenson on popular medical website KevinMD.com.

The post is available online at http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2012/03/reducing-dialysis.html.

This year is the 40th anniversary of the widespread availability of outpatient dialysis as a tool to save the lives of those with kidney failure. Nissenson notes the anniversary as a cause for celebration and calls for stronger efforts at patient education and empowerment.

“Before outpatient dialysis became widely available in 1972, 100,000 Americans died of kidney failure every single year,” Nissenson blogs. “Until 40 years ago, a diagnosis of kidney disease meant only a difficult, certain death.”

Nissenson calls for action from the kidney care community on reducing mortality rates (particularly first-year mortality rates), fighting deadly infections through reduced use of catheters and better medication management for medically fragile dialysis patients.

In the end, Nissenson notes, integrated care management with a focus on prevention of unnecessary hospitalizations and education of patients to fully participate in their care – with active, patient-centric intervention by providers for patients at risk – will make the most important difference in the lives of patients with chronic kidney disease.

“The best solution of all is to prevent the need for dialysis in the first place,” Nissenson posts. “Perhaps for the majority of dialysis patients, more knowledge about their risks and better care of underlying diseases could have made all the difference."

For those still needing dialysis despite best efforts, Nissenson notes, coordinating care – which is currently largely fragmented – is the key to delivering superior outcomes, including better quality of life for patients.

The KevinMD.com website “is the web’s leading social media health platform, with 700,000 monthly page views, and over 100,000 subscribers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and RSS.”1

Nissenson also regularly blogs on DaVita’s website at http://www.davita.com/physicians/allen-blog/.

DaVita is a registered trademark of DaVita Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

About DaVita

DaVita Inc., a Fortune 500® company, is a leading provider of kidney care in the United States, delivering dialysis services to patients with chronic kidney failure and end stage renal disease. DaVita strives to improve patients’ quality of life by innovating clinical care, and by offering integrated treatment plans, personalized care teams and convenient health-management services. As of Dec. 31, 2011, DaVita operated or provided administrative services at 1,809 dialysis facilities in the United States, serving approximately 142,000 patients. The company also operated 11 outpatient dialysis centers located in three countries outside the United States. DaVita supports numerous programs dedicated to creating positive, sustainable change in communities around the world. The company’s leadership development initiatives and social responsibility efforts have been recognized by Fortune, Modern Healthcare, Newsweek and WorldBlu. For more information, please visit www.davita.com.

1 http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/heard-social-medias-leading-physician-voice