Home Dialysis Program
The Home Dialysis Program offers Peritoneal Dialysis and Home Hemodialysis as dialysis options for patients who want the freedom that comes with doing their own treatments. We have been offering Home Dialysis since the 1970s, and in recent years our Home Program has undergone significant growth. We are caring for more and more patients who want to do dialysis in the comfort of their home and eliminate the need to travel, sometimes from a long distance to the in center dialysis unit. Rotating in the Home Dialysis Program offers a great opportunity for our Nephrology Fellows to accumulate knowledge about dialysis options and provides them with a rich multi-disciplinary experience in caring for such patients. In addition to the nephrologists, the Home Program team includes specialized dialysis nurses, a dietician, a social worker, a technician, and a coordinator.
To support the growth of the Home Dialysis Program, we are in the advanced stages of planning a new building for our clinic. The new clinic will include 6 treatment rooms (compared to 2 available now), a modern treatment/education room for training patients and their caregivers, physicians’ offices, and an office for fellow education. Our nurses and doctors are available 24 hours a day to assist and troubleshoot any problems a patient may have at home. We use up to date technology to monitor the patients’ therapy and progress at home. For example, our home hemodialysis patients use iPads to interact with their NxStage hemodialysis system to monitor the treatment and electronically communicate with the Home Program. This greatly improves and simplifies data collection and analysis compared to charting by hand. Peritoneal dialysis patients who are using the cycler machine at night have their treatments electronically recorded on a smart card that is part of the dialysis machine. These information tools allow us to monitor and make treatment changes as needed Even though we have grown and the information systems have been modernized, the one thing that stays constant is our commitment and family approach to optimizing the comprehensive care of our Home Dialysis patients in a warm, friendly, and supportive therapeutic and educational environment.