Lessons learned--one facility's experience with venturing into the home hemodialysis market

The home hemodialysis program team at Community/ Physicians Dialysis Center Fairborn began training their first patient in October 2004. They now have six home patients dialyzing using either daily nocturnal or short daily home hemodialysis. Improved patient outcomes, including excellent morbidity/mortality figures, are hallmarks of the success of the. program. In addition, all home patients have seen moderate to large improvements in quality of life since starting to dialyze at home. This article describes the details involved with developing the program, and what was learned along the way. It is the hope of this author that others will be encouraged by this story, and embrace the challenge of providing this exciting modality option to the patients they serve.