Association between practice coding of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in primary care and subsequent hospitalisations and death: a cohort analysis using national audit data.

Objective: To examine the association between practice percentage coding of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in primary care with risk of subsequent hospitalisations and death.
Design: Retrospective cohort study using linked electronic healthcare records.
Setting: 637 general practitioner (GP) practices in England.
Participants: 167 208 patients with CKD stages 3-5 identified by 2 measures of estimated glomerular filtration rate <60 mL/min/1.73 m ² , separated by at least 90 days, excluding those with coded initiation of renal replacement therapy.
Main Outcome Measures: Hospitalisations with cardiovascular (CV) events, heart failure (HF), acute kidney injury (AKI) and all-cause mortality RESULTS: Participants were followed for (median) 3.8 years for hospital outcomes and 4.3 years for deaths. Rates of hospitalisations with CV events and HF were lower in practices with higher percentage CKD coding. Trends of a small reduction in AKI but no substantial change in rate of deaths were also observed as CKD coding increased. Compared with patients in the median performing practice (74% coded), patients in practices coding 55% of CKD cases had a higher rate of CV hospitalisations (HR 1.061 (95% CI 1.015 to 1.109)) and HF hospitalisations (HR 1.097 (95% CI 1.013 to 1.187)) and patients in practices coding 88% of CKD cases had a reduced rate of CV hospitalisations (HR 0.957 (95% CI 0.920 to 0.996)) and HF hospitalisations (HR 0.918 (95% CI 0.855 to 0.985)). We estimate that 9.0% of CV hospitalisations and 16.0% of HF hospitalisations could be prevented by improving practice CKD coding from 55% to 88%. Prescription of antihypertensives was the most dominant predictor of a reduction in hospitalisation rates for patients with CKD, followed by albuminuria testing and use of statins.
Conclusions: Higher levels of CKD coding by GP practices were associated with lower rates of CV and HF events, which may be driven by increased use of antihypertensives and regular albuminuria testing, although residual confounding cannot be ruled out.
Competing Interests: Competing interests: David C Wheeler has an ongoing consultancy contract with AstraZeneca and has received honoraria, consultancy fees or speaker fees from Amgen, Astellas, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Gilead, Janssen, Napp/Mundipharma, Merck Sharp and Dohme, Tricida, Vifor and Zydus. David Adlam has received research funding from Abbott vascular to support a clinical research fellow; he has also received funding from AstraZeneca inc. for unrelated research and has undertaken consultancy for General Electric inc. to support research funds. Dorothea Nitsch reports grants unrelated to this work from the National Institute for Health Research, Medical Research Council (MRC), the Health Foundation and GlaxoSmithKline.
(© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.)