Fresenius Medical Care North America Advances Home Dialysis with New Telehealth Solution

WALTHAM, Mass., Feb. 26, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Fresenius Medical Care North America (FMCNA), the nation's leading provider of kidney care products and services, today announced the planned rollout of a new telehealth solution for its home dialysis patients. Telehealth aims to continue the rapid growth of home therapies by improving collaboration among patients, the clinical care team, and physicians.

After implementing a series of pilot programs in 2019, FMCNA signed an agreement this month to seamlessly integrate telehealth into theHub, the company's connected health platform.

"We are excited to bring this user-friendly telehealth solution to our home dialysis patients, part of our effort to improve the experience for patients managing their own treatments," said Joe Turk, President of Home and Critical Care Therapies for FMCNA. "This solution will help people living with kidney disease better connect with their care team, including nephrologists, nurses, social workers, and dietitians."

As a result of federal legislation, Medicare now allows a home dialysis patient to meet with their nephrologist and care team for their monthly clinical visit via telehealth under certain conditions. Many private insurers also support telehealth. The solution seeks to increase access to care and reduce the burden of travel for patients, especially those in rural areas. Telehealth also provides a more frequent visual touchpoint with the care team, helping patients succeed on home therapies.

"We have rapidly accelerated development of new connected health technologies to improve the patient, physician, and staff experience," said Dr. Ahmad Sharif, Chief Medical Information Officer for FMCNA. "When home patients are more connected to their care team through remote monitoring, recent studies show fewer hospital admissions and less technique failure. This new telehealth solution will be critical to expanding the adoption of home dialysis for people living with kidney failure."

While initially launching in select markets, the new telehealth solution is expected to roll out more widely later this year.

In October 2019, FMCNA launched theHub connected health platform, which brought together three separate components under one integrated system. The platform enables patients, care teams, and providers to better collaborate and monitor patient treatments. 

For more information about theHub, visit fmcna.com/theHub.

About Fresenius Medical Care North America
Fresenius Medical Care North America (FMCNA) is the premier healthcare company focused on providing the highest quality care to people with renal and other chronic conditions. Through its industry-leading network of dialysis facilities, outpatient cardiac and vascular labs and urgent care centers, Fresenius Medical Care North America provides coordinated healthcare services at pivotal care points for hundreds of thousands of chronically ill customers throughout the continent. As the world's largest fully integrated renal company, it offers specialty pharmacy and laboratory services, and manufactures and distributes the most comprehensive line of dialysis equipment, disposable products and renal pharmaceuticals. For more information, visit the FMCNA website at https://fmcna.com.

Disclaimer
This release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements due to certain factors, including changes in business, economic and competitive conditions, regulatory reforms, foreign exchange rate fluctuations, uncertainties in litigation or investigative proceedings, and the availability of financing. These and other risks and uncertainties are detailed in Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA's reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA does not undertake any responsibility to update the forward-looking statements in this release.

Media Contact:

Fresenius Medical Care North America
Brad Puffer
Corporate Communications
[email protected]
(781) 699-3331

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SOURCE Fresenius Medical Care Holdings, Inc.