Bridging the Gap in Nephrology Nursing: Addressing the Growing Burden of Chronic Kidney Disease
A special issue of Healthcare (ISSN 2227-9032). This special issue belongs to the section "Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2026 | Viewed by 19
Special Issue Editors
2. The Department of Health Economics, Cattolica University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, Italy
Interests: value-based healthcare; health innovations; person-centered care
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: nephrology; nursing; clinical specialist nurse; interventions
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is rising, with a prevalence of 9–15% of the population across ages, presenting a significant global health challenge. CKD is progressive, leading to an irreversible loss of kidney function, often with no noticeable symptoms in the early stages. Diagnosis usually occurs only when kidney function is significantly impaired. Due to the inherent complexity of managing CKD and the global shortage of nephrologists, healthcare systems are highly concerned regarding CKD management. The management of CKD aims to slow its progression and address its complications, including anemia balancing, bone disorders, electrolyte imbalances, and metabolic acidosis.
Across settings, nephrology nursing cares for renal patients undergoing hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, kidney transplantation, intensive care, hematology care, and surgery demanding high specialization. Along with their nursing tasks, nephrology nurses provide patients with emotional and psychosocial support, fulfilling a fundamental role that improves the quality of life of renal patients. Expert nephrology nurses can impact renal patient outcomes and facilitate continuity of care between the hospital and community; this is crucial for value-based healthcare in systems moving away from the pay-for-service paradigm to the value-based healthcare paradigm. In practice, however, there is limited awareness of the specialty of nephrology, including variability in nursing education, creating a void in nephrology nursing.
This SI aims to raise awareness of the potential of nephrology nursing by exploring their integration into multidisciplinary care and accumulating evidence on their impact in improving renal patient outcomes.
The following themes will be explored:
- Multidisciplinary renal care;
- The competencies of nephrology nurses;
- The clinical care provided by nephrology specialists;
- The role of nephrology nurses in improving healthcare outcomes for CKD patients;
- How expert nephrology nurses affect CKD management, patient quality of life, and the continuity of care;
- Clinical nurse specialists, patient-centered care, and value-based healthcare;
- Exploring the prominent role of nephrology nurses in models of collaborative management of CKD care, including hospital-to-community transitions;
- Establishing a clear scope of practice and competencies for nephrology nurses across healthcare settings.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. Gillie Gabay
Dr. Iddo Ben-Dov
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- chronic kidney disease
- nephrology nursing
- nephrology and value-based healthcare
- patient-centered care for renal patients
- multidisciplinary models of care
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