Forging the Future of Chronic Care: 3 Ways Tech is Helping Transform the Patient Experience

For decades, the story of kidney care was written in concrete and steel, measured by physical locations for care delivery.

That story is being rewritten.

Today, the frontier of kidney care focuses on how care providers leverage data, artificial intelligence (AI) and connected technology to meet patients wherever they are. This shift is helping redefine care delivery as well as how the healthcare system manages complex, interconnected chronic diseases.

In a 2025 interview with Modern Healthcare, DaVita CEO Javier Rodriguez discussed this new chapter of healthcare. While acknowledging the real-world complexity of extending care to patients who treat on home dialysis, he emphasized a deep, strategic investment in technology to make at-home care smarter, safer and more personal.

Here are three highlights from Rodriguez on how DaVita is using technology to build this future.

1. Proactively Enhancing Home Dialysis Care with AI and Remote Monitoring

Technology is helping make the experience safer and more connected for the 15% of DaVita kidney patients who are on home dialysis treatments.

The majority of DaVita’s home dialysis patients now treat on “connected” cyclers, leveraging developing vendor technology that strives to provide clinic-based nurses with a direct line of sight into a patient’s treatment behavior when the technology is properly leveraged.

Rodriguez explained that one of the ways DaVita uses AI is via a monitoring system that provides care teams with critical visibility into potential treatment complications so they can intervene proactively. DaVita’s platforms help identify and track irregularities that correlate with a higher risk of hospitalization, enabling clinical teams to intervene before a patient’s condition escalates. This proactive approach is pivotal in helping to prevent adverse events and improve patient safety outside the traditional clinical setting.

2. Applying AI for Clinical Efficiency and Personalized Medicine

DaVita’s commitment to AI extends across many facets of the company, from administrative functions to direct clinical applications that are transforming how care is delivered.

One of the most significant applications is using AI to summarize complex and lengthy patient records. This provides clinicians with a concise, actionable overview of a patient’s case, enabling them to make more effective and timely interventions.

Rodriguez also pointed to a significant milestone in personalized medicine: DaVita’s FDA-approved personalized dosing tool. This AI-driven technology moves beyond one-size-fits-all protocols by supporting physicians and nurses with medication dosage adjustment recommendations based on an individual patient’s real-time lab values and their specific reactions. This level of personalization is crucial in more effectively managing chronic kidney disease and demonstrates how AI can be harnessed to support safer, more precise, and clinically effective care at scale.

3. Championing Interoperability and New Payment Models to Unify Care

Technology alone cannot solve healthcare’s biggest challenges. Rodriguez highlighted that true progress requires systemic change, pointing to interoperability as a major barrier for all patients, not just those with kidney disease. He made the case for a more unified system where patient information is shared seamlessly across providers to support a more holistic and collaborative care approach across specialties.

A system of enhanced data sharing can also help support new payment models driven by outcomes and integrated care, too. DaVita is a leader in advancing integrated care, with approximately 80,000 of its patients already in such programs. By creating a system that enables clinical teams through new technology and capabilities, advancements in new payment models can support a more efficient system centered on delivering quality outcomes — models that Rodriguez suggests could benefit many areas of healthcare.

Through these focused efforts, DaVita is not just participating in the evolution of healthcare; it is actively helping to shape it — proving that the future of kidney care will be defined by technology, innovation and an unwavering commitment to patient care.