What is Transitional Dialysis Care?

Innovative model designed to gently transition patients into the dialysis modality best suited to their individual clinical and lifestyle needs.

Easing patients into dialysis and educating them on their modality choices can help them make informed decisions, that meet their clinical and quality of life goals. Using existing center staff and infrastructure, transitional care provides the opportunity of expanding home hemodialysis (HHD), in-center dialysis (ICHD), and peritoneal dialysis (PD) programs.

Transitional Dialysis Care is designed to allow patients time to:

  • Recover medically
  • Adjust emotionally
  • Receive thorough education about all their treatment options – including both dialysis and transplant
  • Choose the modality that best fits their unique clinical and lifestyle needs

Crashing Into Dialysis

Patients who end up on dialysis often do so in a rapid change or crash from disease progression, PD or transplant failures, or emergency hospital treatments.

These patients may experience a range of emotions from fear to anxiety and depression. The uncertainty of their health may make it difficult to receive modality education and make long-term decisions about renal replacement therapy.

Did You Know?

Did You Know?

Many patients are not presented with all treatment options.1

According to a survey of new dialysis patients:

  • 66% weren’t presented the option of PD
  • 88% weren’t presented the option of HHD
  • 74% weren’t presented the option of transplantation

Clinical stabilization is critical to incident dialysis patients.


People who crash into dialysis have the highest mortality rate in the first 6 months of therapy.2

  • Mortality risk is 80% higher in the first two months

Impact On Patient Modality Decisions

The below results suggest that the Transitional Dialysis Care model can be an effective strategy for increasing patient selection of home dialysis modalities with better overall clinical outcomes.

A recent survey of 60 patients who graduated from one of 10 participating US Transitional Dialysis Units between October 2018 and April 2019 found that:3

  • 70% of patients selected a home modality upon completion
    • 25% chose HHD
    • 45% chose PD
  • Some of the top reasons that patients selected a home modality were:
    • Control over treatment and schedule compared to in-center
    • They received education about health outcomes
    • They wanted less time driving to/from a dialysis center, and wanted the ability to travel with their dialysis system
Impact On Patient Modality Decisions

Contact Us For More Information

For more information on starting Transitional Dialysis Care in your center, complete the form below and a NxStage representative will contact you to discuss your goals and provide helpful resources.

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