Utility of Baseline Home Visit Audit in Home Hemodialysis

We conducted a retrospective cohort study in a university hospital-based home hemodialysis (HHD) program to evaluate the effectiveness of a home visit audit tool. We aimed to delineate safety risk in HHD patients and to ascertain whether this is associated with clinical outcomes. All incident HHD patients between July 18, 2008, and June 30, 2013 with follow-up until December 31, 2013, were included in the cohort. Primary outcome was the description of the presence of safety risk evaluated by the home visit audit at the start of HHD. Secondary outcomes were patient-reported adverse events and technique survival. In our cohort of 84 patients, a baseline home visit audit was surveyed in 56 (67%) patients. Overall, patients were 45.8 ± 14.1 years old, and 51.2% were men. Eighteen of the 35 potential safety risks were documented at least once in the cohort. Thrity-three of the 56 surveyed subjects presented more than one safety risk. The performance of an audit did not influence adverse events or technique survival. Process and methods of auditing a home visit should be reviewed to improve judicious resource use.