Visits with Vanessa
Listen to our podcast, "Visits with Vanessa," to learn more about home hemodialysis (HHD). Vanessa Evans, Senior Manager of Patient Advocacy, will invite patients, care partners, and healthcare experts to talk about the dialysis journey, how HHD has impacted their lives, and many other important therapy related topics. Special guests will share their experiences, tips, and more.
Episode 10: Join us for some commonly asked Q&A around Home Hemodialysis (HHD) Training
David, from the NxStage Customer Success team, joins Vanessa for a part 2 follow up about more ways the team is here to help HHD patients. Hear about the roles the team plays supporting patients during things like storms, water main breaks, ordering emergency supplies, and more.
Episode 9: Customer Service and Tech Support are Here to Help… Part 2!: Learn More About the NxStage Customer Service and Technical Support Teams
David, from the NxStage Customer Success team, joins Vanessa for a part 2 follow up about more ways the team is here to help HHD patients. Hear about the roles the team plays supporting patients during things like storms, water main breaks, ordering emergency supplies, and more.
Episode 8: Customer Service Is Here to Help! Learn More About the NxStage Team
David from NxStage Customer Service talks about some of the different ways the team helps HHD patients every day. From some of the key training the team goes through, to how many people they help over the phone every week, hear how the team is ready to assist.
Episode 7: Home Hemodialysis Now and in the Future: An Epidemiologist’s Opinion
Dr. Eric Weinhandl talks about why he is an advocate for HHD, breaking down barriers to getting patients home, and what he thinks the future of home dialysis could look like.
Episode 6: The Road Is Calling: Freedom and Flexibility with Home Hemodialysis
Patient Advocate Dawn tells us all about her and husband Jimmie’s 3-month RV road trip. Hear the details about how they were able to leave home for 3 months without skipping a beat in Jimmie’s HHD treatments.
Episode 5: Balancing a Full Life: Home Dialysis Fits in When and Where You Need It
Nieltje, a home hemodialysis patient and NxStage user, joins us to discuss balancing it all and staying positive. Nieltje knew she needed to have treatment schedule flexibility and independence in order to make dialysis treatments work in her life.
Episode 4: Managing Home Dialysis in Smaller Spaces
Dawn, a home hemodialysis (HHD) patient and Patient Advocate, lives in a smaller space and makes dialysis work for her. See how she manages her supplies and gets creative with storage for successful home therapy.
Episode 3: Staying Connected: Home Hemodialysis with Nx2me Connected Health
Maaya, a Patient Advocate, lost her kidney function in 2014. With a busy career and family life, Maaya found that traditional in-center dialysis wasn’t the right fit for her lifestyle and transitioned to home hemodialysis, freeing up more time for what’s important to her.
Episode 2: Exploring HHD Options: Making the Choice That’s Best for You
The second episode of our patient-centered home hemodialysis (HHD) focused podcast, Visits with Vanessa, is available now. Our special guest, Dawn, is a NxStage Patient Advocate, nocturnal home hemodialysis (HHD) patient, and a NxStage user. Vanessa and Dawn will discuss a variety of HHD options—more frequent HHD with a care partner, solo/independent HHD, nocturnal HHD—as well as portability and travel. Tune in to understand what HHD options are available and get more information to make the choice that's best for you.
Episode 1: Traveling While on Home Hemodialysis
Hear about traveling with the NxStage Home Hemodialysis (HHD) system from Dawn Bates, NxStage Patient Advocate, and care partner for her husband Jimmie. Jimmie has been on HHD for 12 years and has successfully integrated home therapy into his lifestyle. Dawn and Vanessa share tips and tricks on traveling by car and by plane with the NxStage system. Our host, Vanessa, is an avid traveler and has taken almost 30 trips with her HHD machine in the last five years!
About the Host†
Vanessa lives in Boston with her husband and two sons. She has been on dialysis for more than 22 years and and has been a passionate advocate in the kidney community for the last 14 years. Vanessa serves as Senior Manager of Patient Advocacy for Fresenius Medical Care North America and is a member of the Kidney Health Initiative’s Patient and Family Partnership Council. She holds a master’s degree from Emerson College and a BA in Political Science from University of Massachusetts Amherst. As part of her patient advocacy work, she partners with the National Kidney Foundation, Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the American Association of Kidney Patients, and other organizations.
*Paid Speaker
†NxStage employee
Risk and Responsibility
Patients should review the following information carefully and discuss it with their doctors to decide whether home hemodialysis with NxStage systems is right for them.
Users should weigh the risks and benefits of performing home hemodialysis with NxStage systems.
- Medical staff will not be present to respond to health emergencies that might happen during home treatments, including, among other things, dizziness, nausea, low blood pressure, and fluid or blood leaks.
- Users may not experience the reported benefits of home, more frequent, or nocturnal hemodialysis with the NxStage systems.
- The NxStage systems require a prescription for use.
Users will be responsible for all aspects of their hemodialysis treatment from start to finish.
- Medical staff will not be present to perform home treatments. Users will be responsible for, among other things, equipment setup, needle insertions, responding to and resolving system alarms, system tear-down after treatment, monitoring blood pressure, ensuring proper aseptic technique is followed, and following all the training material and instructions that nurses provide.
Users will need additional resources to perform home hemodialysis.
- Users will need a trained care partner to be present during your treatment at home (unless their doctor prescribes “solo/independent” home hemodialysis, described below).
- Users must have a clean and safe environment for their home treatments.
- Users will need space in their home for boxes of supplies necessary to perform home hemodialysis with NxStage systems.
Certain forms of home hemodialysis have additional risks.
- If a doctor prescribes home hemodialysis more than 3 times a week, vascular access is exposed to more frequent use which may lead to access related complications, including infection of the site. Doctors should evaluate the medical necessity of more frequent treatments and discuss the risks and benefits of more frequent therapy with users.
- If a doctor prescribes “solo/independent” home hemodialysis without a care partner during waking hours, risks of significant injury or death increase because no one is present to help users respond to health emergencies. If users experience needles coming out, blood loss, or very low blood pressure during solo/independent home hemodialysis, they may lose consciousness or become physically unable to correct the health emergency. Users will need additional ancillary devices and training to perform solo/independent home hemodialysis.
- If a doctor prescribes “nocturnal” home hemodialysis at night while the user and a care partner are sleeping, risks increase due to the length of treatment time and because therapy is performed while the user and a care partner are sleeping. These risks include, among other things, blood access disconnects and blood loss during sleep, blood clotting due to slower blood flow or increased treatment time or both, and delayed response to alarms when waking from sleep. A doctor may need to adjust users’ medications for nocturnal home hemodialysis, including, among other things, iron, Erythropoiesis-Stimulating Agents (ESA), insulin/oral hypoglycemics, anticoagulants, and phosphate binders.
