Rubin Home Therapy Team

Daily Nocturnal Hemodialysis
With Remote Monitoring

Over the last 30 years of dialyzing millions of patients with chronic kidney disease, it is clear that "more is better". Patients who receive more dialysis feel better than patients who get less. In addition, it's clear that patients who take control of their own treatments do better than those who are passive and submit to what they are told to do.

Daily Nocturnal Hemodialysis (DNHD) is a realistic and effective way to do more dialysis, to allow patients to control their own treatments and to regain control of their own lives. Since 1998, the Rubin Dialysis Center has offered chronic kidney failure patients the opportunity to be hemodialyzed at home, at night, while they sleep. Our DNHD patients are dialyzed 6 nights a week, for 7-8 hours per night. While they sleep, they are remotely monitored over the Internet by specially trained technicians at our Saratoga Springs Center.

Our patients receive twice as much dialysis as our conventional in-center patients. As a result, they feel much better. In fact, many say they feel "normal". When was the last time a conventional dialysis patient could say that? DNHD patients have no restrictions on fluids or diet. They wake up feeling rested and energetic. They think more clearly. Their appetites improve. Many return to work or school, because they feel so much better. They need fewer medications to control blood pressure and to prevent anemia. Most require few if any medications to control phosphorus in their blood. In fact we often have to encourage our patients to eat more cheese and milk products.

Nothing is as good as having your own kidneys, but daily nocturnal hemodialysis may be the next best alternative.

The Home Therapies Team of the Hortense and Louis Rubin Dialysis Center, Inc. now offer a new, more user friendly home dialysis machine. The NxStage System OneTM, a simple, modular unit of only 70 pounds, uses sterile, pre-mixed dialysate in bags that are attached to the top of the machine for each treatment. This eliminates the need for a complex water treatment system installation and large volumes of water. The "drop-in cartridge" and more automated set up are designed to make this a quicker, more "user friendly" treatment option than other equipment previously available for home hemodialysis use.

In addition to making the health benefits of daily therapy more accessible, the ability to travel with your NxStage machine and have your supplies sent to you at that location is another benefit of this "patient friendly" technology. While this machine, and the short daily dialysis it gives, is not appropriate for every dialysis patient, a good number of patients can benefit from being fully trained and "in control" of their dialysis care.
This "simple, flexible, portable dialysis" allows the patient to have treatment when it is most convenient to their schedules ... not ours.

Peritoneal Dialysis (PD) is a treatment that is done at home. It requires the use of a soft, flexible catheter to be inserted into the abdomen. Fluid, called dialysate, is allowed to flow through the catheter into the abdomen, where it dwells for a period of time. This infused dialysate absorbs excess toxins and fluid that your own kidneys can no longer do. The dialysate is drained and replaced with fresh fluid either several times during the day or by a machine at night while you sleep. There are no needles for this type of therapy and the many benefits include: maintaining your residual kidney function longer, improve your chances of getting a kidney transplant, flexible and less restrictions on diet and fluid intake, less or no insurance co-pays, and it is easier to keep a job with this flexible therapy. Training takes 1 to 2 weeks and after you complete that, the supplies are delivered to you at your home on a monthly basis. Our Rubin Center Home Therapies team is on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to support our patients with their home therapies. Especially for new patients with renal failure requiring dialysis, this is a good therapy to start with and maintains your lifestyle, ability to travel, and have more free time.

Please pursue inquires to either
Shari Meola, RN, CNN, Clinical Services Coordinator or
Dr. Christopher Hoy, DNHD Program Director
at 518-587-1919