Establishing a Platform for Battling End-Stage Renal Disease and Continuing Quality Improvement in Dialysis Therapy in Taiwan-Taiwan Renal Registry Data System (TWRDS)

The high dialysis prevalence and incidence in Taiwan have been an important public health and social issue. Reducing incident patients and improving prevalent patient care are the two major tasks for all nephrologists in Taiwan. Constant report of current dialysis status is essential to fulfill the tasks. Taiwan Renal Registry Data System (TWRDS) was established in 1987. Taiwan Society of Nephrology has reported some important data on dialysis cohort of 1990-2001 and 2001-2005. The standard pre- and post-dialysis cares have changed greatly since the last report of 2005. The purpose of this short review is to present some recent changes of trend after the continuous quality improvement measurement at national level in Taiwan since 2005. The 2009 data from TWRDS suggested 4 interesting changes comparing to previous data from 2001 and 2005. The first change is a continuous stabilization of incident dialysis patients since 2007. The trend of increasing age and diabetes patients entering dialysis program did not appear since 2007. The PD utilization rate increases slowly since 2005 with the current dialysis policy in Taiwan. (Acta Nephrologica 2011; 25: 148-153)