Monitoring acute and chronic kidney failure using statistical process control techniques

Creatinine tests are used to determine a patient's estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) for the assessment of kidney function. This article describes how eGFR results for patients who need to have their cases referred for the attention of a specialist can be filtered out from among the numerous patients whose test results indicate that they are either displaying no reduction in kidney function or whose kidney function is reduced but remains stable. Automation of the process is a key ingredient of our solution because this is the means by which the human effort is directed to those patients in greatest need.