Home Dialysis News

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A peritoneal dialysis program is not only successful when it attracts new patients to the therapy, but is able to increase technique survival, which keeps patients on the therapy with as few complications as possible.

Although the 2017 conference focused on identifying barriers to home dialysis initiation and how to retain patients on such therapies, the purpose of the 2018 National Kidney Foundation-Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative Home Dialysis Conference was to develop actionable steps to achieve these goals. A report from the conference, details of which were presented at the Annual Dialysis Conference, held in Kansas City, Missouri, this week, was recently published in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Assigning a certified clinical hemodialysis technician to assist the primary registered nurse improved care delivery for patients receiving home dialysis, according to research presented at the Annual Dialysis Conference.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The buttonhole technique for vascular access is safe for home hemodialysis as long as patients are diligent about skin preparation and cannulation, clinicians from Fresenius Medical Care reported in a poster presentation.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The nephrology community will need to make major changes in how it approaches home dialysis to meet Advancing American Kidney Health goals for the modality by 2025, according to a keynote speaker at the Annual Dialysis Conference.

Dialysis programs that offer a medically trained assistant to patients who elect to go on peritoneal dialysis could help increase use of the modality and extend technique survival, according to a recently published editorial.

Even with robust training programs and willing partners, performing dialysis at home can be intimidating for patients with ESKD.

The 10 largest outpatient dialysis providers in the United States added more than 14,000 new home patients to their census from 2018 to 2019, according to an annual survey conducted by Nephrology News & Issues. The growth resulted in 35% of new patients starting dialysis during that time period on home dialysis –15 percentage points higher than survey results from 2017 to 2018, and almost triple the 12.5% share of home patient growth among new starts from 2016 to 2017.

In 1972, Congress passed legislation to fund the ESRD Program. The result was a shift in how and where dialysis was performed. With a guaranteed payment backed by the federal government, nephrologists joined with investors in opening freestanding clinics across the United States and created the three-times-a-week in-center dialysis model. According to Medicare.gov, there were 6,871 dialysis facilities in the United States at the end of 2016, the most current data available.

BioIntelliSense has received FDA approval to market BioSticker, an on-body sensor that allows for continuous monitoring of vital signs of patients in home settings, including dialysis care.