iChoose Decision Kidney Aid for End-Stage Renal Disease Patients

The investigators developed iChoose Kidney -- a shared decision-making support tool accessible through iPad, iPhone, or the web -- to provide ESRD patients and their providers with a simple, standardized, easily accessible, statistically robust tool for use in the clinic to guide patient education and healthcare decision-making about treatment options of dialysis or kidney transplantation. The iChoose Kidney decision aid provides patients with estimates of their individualized 1 and 3-year risks of mortality on dialysis vs. transplantation, based on previous national data. The tool has the potential to improve communication and decision-making between patients and their healthcare providers and improve access to kidney transplantation among patients with ESRD.

This will be a two-arm, randomized study, and will be conducted at 3 large transplant centers with diverse patient populations. One group of patients will receive standard education alone during their scheduled transplant evaluation. The second group will receive the standard education as well have the provider use the iChoose Kidney aid with them. The project timeline will be a total of 24 months inclusive of enrollment, follow-up, data analysis, and outcome evaluation.

This study will assess how well the iChoose decision aid works in improving patient knowledge, preferences for treatment, and patient access to transplant. The study will also assess whether providers find the tool useful for providing ways to share information with patients about ways to treat their kidney disease.