European Rare Kidney Diseases Reference Network

ended

The European Reference Network for Rare Kidney Diseases (ERKNet) will offer highly specalised healthcare to children and adults suffering from congenital and acquired glomerulopathies, tubulopathies, metabolic and stone forming nephropathies, thrombotic microangiopathies, renal ciliopathies and other anomalies of kidney and urinary tract development. The Network comprises almost 40 centres in 12 European countries with specific expertise documented by large patient numbers (collectively more than 45,000), state-of-art diagnostic services and therapeutic equipment and professional multidisciplinary care. The Members will share best practices by offering physical and virtual cross border consultation, series of educational workshops and webinars, e-learning modules on focused rare kidney disease topics, short-term training opportunities, and by endorsing existing and developing new clinical practice guidelines and recommendations wherever needed. In collaboration with the patient organisations, the Network will collect informational materials on all rare kidney diseases and their treatments and make the documents available in multiple languages to affected families throughout Europe. Furthermore, ERKNet will strive to harmonize and further optimize patient care across the Member centres by regularly monitoring and benchmarking guideline adherence, disease-specific performance and outcomes measures, as well as patient safety and satisfaction. Another important goal of the Network will be to actively support clinical research into risk factors and biomarkers of early and severe disease phenotypes, and provide a platform for innovative interventional clinical trials aimed at improving or stabilizing kidney functions and preventing progressive renal failure in adults and children with rare kidney diseases.