Technology-Supported Solutions to Improve Guideline-Informed Care for Kidney Disease: Conclusions from a Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Controversies Conference.
TL;DR
The conference identified a range of lived experience, clinician, health care system, health policy, and technology-level factors that can influence the effectiveness of technology-supported solutions in improving guideline-informed care and strategies to optimize digital health technologies for promoting guideline-informed care.
Abstract
Implementation of guideline-informed care for the prevention, detection, and management of kidney disease remains suboptimal throughout the world. In November 2025, Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) held a Controversies Conference on the role of technology-supported solutions to improve guideline-informed care for people with or at risk for kidney disease and to identify priorities for research. There have been rapid advances in various technologies for earlier identification of people with kidney disease; risk stratification for adverse kidney, cardiovascular, and other clinical and patient-centered outcomes; and promotion of guideline-informed therapies, monitoring, and patient self-management. Still, there remain important considerations for how to optimize the use of such technologies for achieving care that is integrated, personalized, safe, and guideline-informed. The conference identified a range of lived experience, clinician, health care system, health policy, and technology-level factors that can influence the effectiveness of technology-supported solutions in improving guideline-informed care. Research priorities included developing and maintaining living guidelines; harmonizing and integrating guideline recommendations into clinical decision support solutions; generating evidence on the effectiveness and safety of technology-supported solutions that reduce disparities and preserve trust; developing and evaluating efforts that promote interoperability, feasibility and scalability of technologies across health care systems; developing more effective public-private partnerships and systematic use of validated health technology assessments; and clarifying the incremental value of emerging technologies involving sensor-derived biomarkers and integrated multimodal data. Strategies to optimize digital health technologies for promoting guideline-informed care were also delineated.