In Rural States Policy Changes To Improve Access To Home Dialysis Are Vital

By its very nature, chronic kidney disease can rob individuals of their independence. It gradually causes a person to lose the ability to filter wastes from the body, and should kidneys fail entirely, a patient must rely on renal replacement therapy (dialysis) to live. An estimated 26 million Americans have chronic kidney disease of varying degrees; more than 600,000 have end-stage kidney failure. In my home state of West Virginia, some 3,500 patients were on dialysis in 2013, and for most of the past two decades, our state has led the nation in per capita numbers of patients starting dialysis. Dialysis can be provided thrice weekly in a center specifically for this purpose or at home. Most patients in the US dialyze in-center despite the benefits of home dialysis and the potential for restored independence. I have seen the benefits over the course of my career. During my nephrology training at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, because there were more new patients than there were dialysis chairs, everyone was steered toward home-based peritoneal dialysis. Coming to West Virginia in 1993, distance from dialysis centers led many patients to choose home dialysis. Currently, about 20 percent of our patients dialyze at home, and some are able to continue or return to work. Lengthy trips to a facility multiple times a week have the potential to interfere with a patient’s work and personal life, and research shows that over half of in-center patients are unable to maintain the same ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Costs and Spending Health IT Health Professionals Public Health Quality chronic disease dialysis kidney disease nephrology rural health Telehealth Source Type: blogs