Health Sciences Centre’s renal program has developed and launched a New End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Start Program to ensure hemodialysis patients are receiving all required education and support during their transition to starting treatments.
“The goal is to ensure consistent care and support for all new hemodialysis patients and to give staff the tools they need to be able to effectively support the patients,” said Alison Lindsay, Patient Care Manager with HSC’s renal program.
Lindsay, along with HSC nephrologist Dr. Jay Hingwala and several physicians, nurses and allied health staff at HSC’s renal program, helped develop the program which includes workshops for staff and care maps for tracking patient progress through the New ESRD Start Program.
“We went through several phases of developing, piloting and fine tuning the program to ensure it truly serves the needs of patients and our staff,” said Hingwala. “Our hope is also to improve the amount of patients with optimal vascular access and improve the rate of uptake of home dialysis and transplant.”
Staff are introduced to the program through a two-day workshop and then each discipline within the renal health-care team implements its portion of their care map for patients through a coordinated schedule.
Patients go through the program, meeting with different members of the health-care team, in about six daytime treatments.
The program is being explored as a model for other Manitoba Renal Program sites by providing standardized tools but will also be adaptable for the needs and functions of other units.
Staff involved in developing the program included nephrologists, educators, dietitians, nurses, pharmacists, occupational therapists and social workers. Topics covered during staff training include blood pressure, home modalities, vascular access, medications, transplant, nutrition and physical activity.
“An innovative aspect of this new program is that we have adapted our existing resources in order to better meet the growing demand on our services all while keeping patient care and patient needs as the priority,” explains Hingwala.
The education seminars for staff will be held about three times a year.