Cricket’s groundbreaking online education program gives ‘HOPE’ to patients with advanced stage chronic kidney disease
Cricket Health, a developer of technology-enabled solutions for patients living with chronic kidney disease (CKD), announced that its HOPE (Health Options Patient Education) program will be featured at the Health 2.0 10th Annual Fall Conference, September 25-28, in Santa Clara, CA.
Cricket Health is one of only 10 companies selected to be part of Health 2.0’s LAUNCH! Panel at the Fall Conference. CricketHealth Co-Founder and CEO Arvind Rajan will be presenting his company’s HOPE program at 1:55 p.m. (PT), Wednesday, September 28, in the Mission City Ballroom at the Santa Clara Convention Center.
HOPE is an online education program that connects advanced stage CKD patients to engaging content and a network of healthcare professionals, peers and mentors. HOPE allows patients to access clinical expertise and peer-to-peer support, empowering them to choose ESRD treatment options that fit their lifestyle and reflect their personal values.
CKD affects nearly 26 million adults in the United States, yet most patients go undiagnosed until the late stages of the disease, when they are progressing toward kidney failure (also referred to as End Stage Renal Disease, or ESRD). Furthermore, almost 90 percent of ESRD patients currently end up on a form of care—in-center hemodialysis—despite the fact that there are better, less expensive treatment options available for many of these patients.
“HOPE was designed to help patients and their care partners learn about advanced stage CKD and understand their treatment options,” said CricketHealth Co-Founder and CEO Arvind Rajan. “By identifying patients at risk for ESRD, then empowering them with a knowledge-rich platform to understand their options, make decisions with confidence, and interact with other patients and trained medical staff, we’re striving to dramatically reduce avoidable kidney failure hospitalizations and readmissions, and ensure an optimal transition to ESRD.”
According to the Clinical Excellence Research Center at Stanford, upstream intervention strategies, like Cricket Health’s HOPE, could save the health system $63 billion annually. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has a goal of encouraging greater use of home dialysis modalities, yet few ESRD patients have a complete understanding of their self-care options, like peritoneal dialysis and home hemodialysis.