Telemedicine between clinical evaluation and nutrition in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD): experience from the feminine point of view

Abstract

In Italy, starting from 2015, the date of publication of the guidelines on the 2014-2020 Digital Growth Strategy, technological evolution in medicine has provided encouraging results. The term telemedicine is now in common use, and it is also indicated at an encyclopedic level as “the set of technical and health care monitoring tools, created through systems designed to provide quick access to both medical specialists and patients, regardless of the place where they are respectively located”. Nowadays, in the COVID era, the need for social distancing has highlighted the contribution of digital technology to healthcare in terms of access to care and healthcare spending. With regard to chronic kidney disease, telemedicine has always proved essential in improving patients’ quality of life, as in the case of peritoneal dialysis. The remote management and monitoring of patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis has not only proved to radically change and improve patients’ quality of life in replacement therapy, but has also reduced costs. There are some situations in which telemonitoring can guarantee the maintenance of an adequate quality of life for patients in the different stages of the disease. Thanks to the constant commitment of some groups of professionals where the largest part is represented by the “pink quota”, it was possible to experiment and implement evaluation protocols for the renal patient in conservative and replacement treatment in some of the most central aspects of care: medical and dietary therapy.