In August, Thompson Hospital will begin offering dialysis services to its inpatients, as well as referral-based nephrology consultations for both inpatients and outpatients dealing with kidney disease.
The new services, a result of Thompson’s 2012 affiliation with the University of Rochester Medical Center, are to begin Aug. 4. They will be overseen by Dr. David Bushinsky, chief of Nephrology at URMC, and will be provided in a recently-remodeled space on the second floor of the Canandaigua hospital.
The offering of inpatient dialysis is expected to initially benefit approximately 60 Thompson patients per year, with the potential for many more. Thompson Health Executive Vice President/COO Kurt Koczent explains these are patients hospitalized for other conditions who need dialysis – a blood-cleansing treatment for kidney failure – on a regular basis. Previously, these patients would have had to travel to Rochester in order to receive treatments during their hospitalizations. “And if there is ever a time when you want to be close to friends and family, it’s when you’re hospitalized,” Koczent says.
According to the American Kidney Fund, an estimated 31 million people in the U.S. (10 percent of the population) have chronic kidney disease (CKD). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports the incidence of recognized CKD in people ages 65 and older more than doubled between 2000 and 2008, with diabetes and high blood pressure among the leading causes. “There is a growing need for dialysis, and our inpatients deserve to be able to receive these services close to home,” Koczent says.