The need for outpatient back-up for home hemodialysis patients: Implications for resource utilization.

Introduction: The provision of sufficient support contributes to home hemodialysis (HHD) technique survival. The need for back-up treatment in incident and prevalent patients on HHD has not been well described previously, and is important from both technique survival and resource allocation. We aimed to quantify the amount of back-up treatment given to patients in our HHD unit, and hypothesized that the provision of back-up HD facilitated technique survival.

Methods: This was a retrospective, single-center cohort study quantifying the provision of back-up HD between January and December 2018. Electronic and paper medical records were accessed for data collection.

Findings: One hundred and nineteen patients dialyzed independently at home during the study period (96 patient years of HHD). Seventy-eight (66%) patients required a total of 292 back-up HD sessions in the HHD unit, representing an average of three back-up HD runs per patient year of HHD. Fifty-three percent of back-up HD runs were required for vascular access related issues. The most common clinical issue requiring assessment and back-up HD was extracellular fluid volume management. An equal proportion (95%) of those that utilized back-up HD and those that did not utilize back-up HD maintained a positive disposition (transplant or ongoing HHD) in relation to technique survival in the short term.

Conclusions: From a resource viewpoint, this program of approximately 100 HHD patients required the availability of one to two staffed HD stations each weekday for back-up HD. The provision of back-up HD was not a harbinger of HHD discontinuation.