Essentials of Vascular Access for Home Hemodialysis

Hemodialysis (HD) at home has gained increasing popularity in recent years because of regulatory and financial issues. Creation and maintenance of a well-functioning, cannulatable vascular access is essential for performance of home HD (HHD). A vascular access team-based approach to creation, maintenance, and troubleshooting of vascular access can facilitate removing barriers to cannulation at home related to fear of pain and bleeding associated with large bore needles. Frequent cannulation of HD access is associated with more frequent access complications, especially infections. Thus, proper cannulation of arteriovenous access requires careful training of rope ladder and buttonhole techniques to avoid infectious and traumatic complications that can lead to dire consequences. Development of better methods of creating buttonholes and single needles for dialysis can facilitate HHD. A culture of self-cannulation at dialysis centers can also promote HHD.