February 26, 2003 CHICAGO (AP) -- A program to improve kidney dialysis appeared to narrow the racial and gender gaps in the quality of care given to patients.
Blacks and men in the program were still less likely than whites and women to receive adequate dialysis. But the differences became smaller.
In 1993, only 46 percent of white patients and 36 percent of black patients received the right amount of dialysis. In 2000, those figures jumped to 87 percent and 84 percent respectively.
Also in 1993, only 54 percent of female patients and 31 percent of male patients received adequate dialysis, compared with 91 percent and 82 percent respectively in 2000.
The study analyzed data on 58,700 kidney failure patients who participated in a project to improve the treatment from 1993 to 2000. The program was sponsored by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that oversees Medicare. Nearly half the patients were 65 or older.
The findings appear in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
The program to improve dialysis included educating health-care workers with workshops and reading material about how to improve the care of patients getting dialysis.
In dialysis, a machine performs normal kidney functions of removing waste products from the blood and excess fluid from the body.
Patients generally undergo dialysis three times a week for about four hours at a time. The optimum treatment can be achieved by changing the length of a session, the rate of blood flow or the size of the blood filters.
The study was led by Dr. Ashwini Sehgal, an associate professor at Case Western Reserve University.
Sehgal said the reasons for the racial and gender disparities are unclear. He said one possibility is that blacks and men tend to be larger than whites and women and thus require longer sessions, and doctors often fail to give them more dialysis.
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
