The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service's (CMS), national End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Clinical Performance Measures (CPM) Project is a data collection initiative to identify opportunities for improvement of care to adult, Medicare maintenance dialysis beneficiaries. This analysis of 1999 CPM data characterizes the profile of hemodialysis vascular access in the United States and identifie...

Introduction. Guidelines advocate surveillance of vascular access to reduce incidences of thrombosis. However, the value of online vascular access flow monitoring is still under debate. Methods. Through a systematic literature search, the effect of online access flow surveillance combined with pre-emptive intervention on thrombosis frequency is reviewed. Results. Due to methodological differenc...

BACKGROUND Infection is the leading cause of morbidity and the second leading cause of mortality in patients on renal replacement therapy. The rates of bloodstream infection in hemodialysis patients vary according to the type of venous access used. Gram-positive bacteria are most frequently isolated in blood cultures of hemodialysis patients. This study evaluated risk factors for the developmen...

Over a seven year period from 1982 to 1989,3337 conduits were created in 3137 patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD) as access for chronic dialysis. These included 2690 side-to-side arteriovenous fistulae (A VF), 168 end-to-side A VFs, 10 autogenous vein grafts, 51 homogenous frozen vein grafts, 109 polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) grafts, 209 emergency external arteriovenous shunts, t...

Background & Aim: One of the basic and important needs of hemodialysis patients is vascular access. Nursing students as members of the health team and future nurses, play an essential role in the safety management of hemodialysis patients and therefore, their training is important to support patient safety. Today, evidence-based education with the objective of explicit and rational use of the b...

BACKGROUND Elderly patients with cardiovascular comorbidities are more likely to die before progressing to the need for undergoing hemodialysis; so deferring their predialysis vascular access (VA) surgery has been suggested. However, recent declines in cardiovascular mortality in the US population may have changed this consideration. We assessed whether there has been a parallel decrease in car...

arteriovenous fistulae traditionally have been placed in the upper extremity. experience with groin hemodialysis access has been discouraging because of high infection rates and associated limb amputation. the aim of this study was to determine infection rates, patency rates, and possible predictive factors for prosthetic thigh angioaccess outcomes in our hemodialysis patient population. a pros...