I'm doing some work with Andy Connor from the Campaign for greener healthcare and have been asked about HHD tech support, in particular how often HHD patients are routinely visited by techs. Having visited a few tech departments in my time I know this is quite variable across the country. So I thought I would do a quick survey on the forum.

Can you please post back with how often techs routinely visit HHD patients, for what reason,  and the size of your HHD program. Can you also include how often the patients are routinely visited by nurses, if known.

thanks in advance

Fraser

We will shortly have 10 patients at home. Tech visits are currently every  4 - 6 weeks for filter change, RO clean and check, chlorine levels check post carbon cylinder,  sampling post RO and testing for endotoxin, TVC and Trace elements. Often put drain cleaner down pipes also during visit. Dialysis machine sampled 6 monthly and serviced annually.  

Regards

 John

Hi All, here at Guy's we currently have 40 patients at home on HD, 7 of which are on daily nocturnal HD. Our patients are spaced across the SE but with some way outside our catchment area for various reasons.

We service the HD machines once a year, with a secondary service of the associated equipment at a different time. The patients are responsible for changing filters and cleaning R/Os and we have started to introduce backwashable carbon columns to limit the number of filters needing to be changed in the system, (we used to have 2 x 10 inch carbon filters).  

We are starting a programme to check water quality with an annual assay and endotoxin and chlorine tests every 3 months on a rolling programme, to cover all seasons. We realise that this will tie-up 1 technologist for almost the whole year, so will rotate the work and maybe include the trainees.  

Our home nurses, 2, visit the majority of our home patients every 6 - 8 weeks.

Hope that is what you require, David