Reviewing and managing chronic kidney disease to improve outcomes

Start Date

6 March 2020

End Date

9 September 2025

Project Participants

Curtin University, WA Country Health Services (WACHS), WA Department of Health, WA Primary Health Alliance

Status: Completed

Tags: chronic disease management, chronic kidney disease (CKD), data linkage, health data, health equity, health system, healthcare access, pathology, population health, predictive analytics, regional rural remote health, renal health

Opportunity 

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a growing burden on individuals, communities and health systems, with people in remote communities and Aboriginal Australians experiencing disproportionately poorer outcomes. Earlier stages of CKD often go undetected, limiting opportunities for prevention and intervention.  

Western Australia (WA) health authorities sought to understand CKD prevalence, progression, service utilisation and costs across the population. The project aimed to bring together health services, researchers and policymakers and utilise linked pathology and hospital data to investigate the clinical trajectory and early onset of chronic kidney disease (CKD), and potentially transform how CKD can be managed. 

Project Objectives  

This project aimed to create a unique statewide linked CKD data resource that could help accurately establish the true epidemiology of CKD across the spectrum of CKD stages, by bringing together pathology records across WA and hospital morbidity and mortality data in WA from 2002 onwards. 

This information could then inform quantification of the economic burden of CKD, identify risk factors influencing progression, and support development of evidence-based clinical recommendations to improve models of care and service planning.

The project successfully established the CKD.WA linked data asset, securely and safely bringing together pathology, hospital and mortality data for more than 2.5 million Western Australians using Privacy Preserving Record Linkage (PPRL). The project also developed predictive analytics capabilities using machine learning approaches for predicting progression to end-stage kidney disease. 

Researchers generated new evidence on disease prevalence and progression patterns of CKD in WA, showing that greater disease burden exists in regional, remote and socioeconomically disadvantaged populations, with earlier intervention representing opportunity to improve patient outcomes and reduce health service utilisation and costs.  

The project team brought together stakeholders from across the WA and national health system in a forum to present findings, gather insights on utilisation of the CKD.WA linked data asset, and explore future opportunities and priorities from this research to influence CKD care in Australia.  

The project has created a foundational comprehensive linked CKD data asset for WA, providing an evidence base for policy and service planning on CKD.  

The findings provide evidence to guide prevention, earlier diagnosis, health service design and equitable access to care for this condition, and has the potential to improve planning for screening, treatment and workforce requirements, particularly for regional, rural and remote communities. 

The project demonstrates the power of privacy-preserving data linkage and advanced analytics to support population health management, and strengthens Australia’s capacity to deliver more proactive, evidence-based and data-enabled chronic disease management. Read more in the Impact Case Study: Advancing chronic kidney disease care: leveraging data to improve patient outcomes

Integrity, Excellence,
Teamwork and Authenticity

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