Adult Services

The St. Joseph Hospital Dialysis Center offers a complete range of in-center and at-home services. We offer two types of renal replacement therapy, hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis.

Outpatient In-center Hemodialysis Clinic

Our Hemodialysis Clinic provides comprehensive, staff-assisted hemodialysis services. Patients are assigned time slots for treatment, based on their personal needs and availability. In hemodialysis, the patient's blood is allowed to flow a few ounces at a time through a machine with a special filter that removes wastes and extra fluids. The clean blood is then returned to the patient's body. Most patients with kidney failure must undergo hemodialysis three times a week for an average of three to four hours each treatment.

Home/Self Care Dialysis Clinic

St. Joseph Hospital Home Dialysis Services provides the comprehensive training dialysis patients need to care for themselves at home Patients who are interested in at-home dialysis may be referred by their nephrologist or refer themselves. Patients will then be assessed by clinic nursing staff to ensure that at-home treatment is appropriate for their needs.

Training and support is provided for the following types of at-home dialysis:

Peritoneal Dialysis: In peritoneal dialysis, a soft tube (called a catheter) is used to fill the patient's peritoneum with a liquid solution. This solution will come in contact with the blood vessels that line the abdominal cavity, allowing for waste products and excess fluid to pass into the solution. The wastes and fluid are then removed from the body when the dialysis solution is drained from the peritoneum. The process of draining and filling is called an exchange. The period that the dialysis solution is in the abdomen is called the dwell time. The St. Joseph Hospital Dialysis Center provides two types of peritoneal dialysis:

• Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis (CAPD): This method doesn't require a machine, and allows patients to move around while the dialysis solution is in their abdomen. A typical schedule requires four exchanges a day, each with a dwell time of 3 to 4 hours between exchanges.
• Continuous Cycling Peritoneal Dialysis (CCPD): This method requires a machine called a cycler which fills and drains the patient's abdomen (usually during sleep).

Training for both methods takes approximately two to four weeks.

In-Patient Acute Dialysis Unit

Our Acute Dialysis Unit offers continuity of care for patients when they are hospitalized at St. Joseph Hospital. The Acute Dialysis Unit offers hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) for variable indications including autoimmune disorders and continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) for critical care patients.