The goal of the project was to create an online community and forum, for patients, caregivers, and any member of the general public connected to kidney disease. The project was built on Salesforce's Community Cloud platform, and was launched for patient Portal users in 2018. The community will be broad launched to the public in 2019.
Fresenius Medical Care serves more than 190,000 dialysis patients across the U.S. including those who dialyze at home and in a dialysis center. The request to connect patients with other patients has been reflected in multiple ethnographic research and market research studies, and isolation and loneliness is a common complaint among dialysis patients. Some patients cite community as a reason to choose or remain on in-center dialysis even though home dialysis offers more flexibility and better outcomes.
Our goal was to design a vibrant community that would supplement the dialysis center community and help to eliminate social barriers to home therapy.
Final solution has three major components: the ability for user to interact 1:1 via direct messaging, the ability for users to interact in groups via the forum, and the ability to interact with educational content via articles.
