AS I SEE IT


These models encourage clinicians to make real improvements in patients’ quality of life and incentivize organiza- tions to meet key quality metrics. These metrics include “optimum starts,” which occurs when a patient is prepared to choose a dialysis modality before they need it, initiates dialysis with any type of access except a CVC and is not hospitalized when it is time to begin dialysis. The result is a great improve- ment in patient health at the onset of dialysis and a reduction in costs to the healthcare system. This is precisely what the endoAVF technology enables us to do for our patients. With faster maturation and fewer procedures required to mature an endoAVF, we help patients reduce catheter contact time or even avoid the need for a catheter altogether when


Compared to a central venous catheter or synthetic graft, the AV fistula is the preferred type of dialysis access because of its lower infection rate, lower hospitalization rate and reduced healthcare costs.”


— Brian O’Dea and Gautam Bhanushali, MD, Nephrology Associates of Northern Illinois and Indiana


they are starting dialysis. Less catheter time means fewer complications, like infections, and less hospitalization, all of which reduces costs to the healthcare system. An endoAVF also


lasts longer than a surgical fistula and requires fewer interventions to maintain, which further reduces costs over the patient’s lifetime.


The costs of kidney disease are staggering, both to an individual’s quality of life and to our healthcare system. By adopting endoAVF tech- nology and shifting dialysis access procedures to ASCs, we can lower costs associated with treating ESRD while reducing the burden of kidney care on our patients.


Brian O’Dea is the chief executive officer of Nephrology Associates of Northern Illinois and Indiana in Oakbrook, Illinois, and Gautam Bhanushali, MD, is a board-certified interventional nephrologist in Chicago, Illinois. Write them at bodea@nephdocs. com and gbhanushali@nephdocs.com.


ASC FOCUS MAY 2021 | ascfocus.org


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