Study: Home dialysis as good as hospital treatment

Study: Home dialysis as good as hospital treatment
The home treatment costs $20,000 to $30,000 less, which would translate into savings of up to $516 million if 17,200 kidney patients who underwent hospital dialysis from 2007 had treatments at home.

Source:   AHN   Reporter:   Vittorio Hernandez
Location:    Toronto, Ontario, Canada   Published:   January 14, 2011 10:09 a.m. EST
Topics:   Science And Technology, Long Term Care, Social Issue, Therapy, Health Treatment, Technology, Health

A study by St. Michael’s Hospital has concluded that home dialysis is as effective as treatments done in the hospital, and much lighter on the pocket.

Home treatment costs $20,000 to $30,000 less, which would translate into savings of up to $516 million if 17,200 kidney patients who underwent hospital dialysis from 2007 had treatments at home, the study found. The data is based on records of the Canadian Institute for Health Information, which were analyzed by St. Michael’s researchers led by Dr. Jeffrey Perl, a kidney specialist.
Perl pointed out that kidney patients who had their dialysis done at home or the hospital have the same 33 percent death rates during the course of the study. However, he admitted not all kidney patients are suitable for home-based treatment.
In home-based dialysis, or peritoneal dialysis, patients are injected with cleansing fluids through a catheter tube to removed toxins from the blood. The fluids are drained several times a day. In hospital-based dialysis or hemodialysis, the patient’s blood is removed from the body, filtered and then returned minus the toxins.
Only 18 percent of kidney patients have their dialysis done at home and their number is going down, even if it saves patients time and even allow some of them to hold jobs.
For kidney failure patients lucky enough, the better alternative to dialysis is to find an organ donor match More potential kidney donors were added to the Living Donor Paired Exchange pool after Quebec signed up in the exchange on October.
The exchange started in January 2009 as a partnership between the Canadian Blood Services and three Canadian provinces. In less than two years all Canadian provinces have signed up, with Quebec becoming the latest to join.
There are about 35,000 Canadians suffering from kidney ailments, with 3,000 of them on the waiting list for an organ transplant. The medical procedure saves the health care system up to $40,000 a year in treatments and medication.

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