Preface

It is indeed my great pleasure to see the publication of the Clinical Practice Guidelines for renal service in Hong Kong. It is the joint effort of the Hong Kong College of Physicians and the Central Renal Committee of Hospital Authority and supported by the Hong Kong Society of Nephrology.

It has been the efforts of the Hong Kong renal community from both nephrologists and renal nurses with other specialists which has spanned for the last 2 years. The preparation of the guidelines have gone through a very elaborate process, which was open and transparent. We have conducted an open forum for all stakeholders from the public and private sector to present to them our drafts and to listen to their comments. After further revision, the final draft has been put in the website of the Hong Kong College of Physicians inviting comments and suggestions before we finalise the documents.

Renal medicine is fast advancing and it is important that the quality of care of renal patients and the standards of dialysis units, both peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis, to be well maintained. This guidelines are very important and have been used as standards for accreditation of the Renal Units in Hong Kong.

As the President of Hong Kong College of Physicians, I am particularly happy that such guidelines are published jointly with the Hospital Authority and the Hong Kong Society of Nephrology. That is one of the ways to upkeep our professionalism. I hope that other specialties can follow and the College is very forthcoming to support.

As Chairman of Central Renal Committee of Hospital Authority, I am grateful to our nephrologists and renal nurses for their hard work to maintain a high quality of care of our renal patients in Hong Kong. The publication of these guidelines reflect the high standards that we can achieve in Hong Kong.

I am particularly pleased that these guidelines are published in Nephrology, the official Journal of the Asian Society of Nephrology, of which I am now the President. Not only this shows the support of Hong Kong for the Asian Pacific nephrology, it also allows our guidelines to be available in an indexed journal readily searchable from the web.

Once again, I thank all the Editors and the Authors for the contributions to the success of publication of these guidelines.

Last but not least, I would like to thank Prof Sophia Chan, Secretary for Food and Health, Prof John Leong, Chairman of Hospital Authority and Prof Richard Yu, Senior Advisor to the Hong Kong College of Physicians and the Hong Kong Society of Nephrology for their invaluable advice and support.