Compliance Focus
BWH Opens City’s First Asian Renal Clinic
Standing, from left, Dirk Hentschel, MD; Li-Li Hsiao, MD, PhD, director of the Asian Renal Clinic; Joseph Bonventre, MD, PhD, chief of the Renal Division; Jennifer M. Berrios, MHA, Renal Clinical administrator. Seated, from left, June Chang, practice secretary; and Marcia (Lee) Riley, Renal Division administrator. Not pictured are Ajay Singh, MD, Renal clinical director, and Stephen I-Hong Hsu, MD, PhD.
To better serve the more than 200,000 Asians—including 174,000 Chinese—living in the Greater Boston area, BWH in March opened the Asian Renal Clinic, the first in Boston and perhaps the only clinic of its kind in the nation.
“This extends the reach of BWH renal faculty to the Asian communities and better serves this group,” Renal Division Chief Joseph Bonventre, MD, PhD, said. “With three Mandarin-speaking physicians in the clinic, we’re able to break down language barriers and help patients feel more comfortable receiving care.”
This is especially important as Asians are at a higher risk than other populations for IgA nephropathy, a kidney disorder caused by deposits of the IgA protein in the filters within the kidney. This causes the kidney to lose its ability to clear wastes from the body and can lead to chronic kidney failure. BWH’s Stephen I-Hong Hsu, MD, PhD, is recognized to be one of the world’s experts in this disease.
The new Asian Renal Clinic also will play a critical role in addressing the increasing number of Asians with diabetes and its complications, including diabetic kidney disease. More than 50 percent of all new patients requiring chronic kidney dialysis therapy are diabetics.
Li-Li Hsiao, MD, PhD, director of the Asian Renal Clinic, also will head an initiative to make clinical interventions in the communities where many Mandarin-speaking people live. She will conduct health screenings and preventive medicine talks. “We want to coordinate with primary care physicians, community groups, schools and churches to identify patients and make it easy for them to get care,” she said.
Global outreach efforts also are underway, as BWH’s Renal Division and the premier Renal Division in mainland China at the Peking University First Hospital in Beijing were recently officially recognized as sister renal divisions by the International Society of Nephrology. BWHers are working with nephrology leaders in China to improve medical education for nephrologists there.