I see there is going to be a whole day devoted to home hemo. After the conference, will there be somewhere online where we can go and have a look at what the various speakers had to say? Will you be posting about the conference here on HDC?
Thanks.
The ADC has held a pre-conference one day Symposium on Home HD under the direction and auspice of the ISHD (International Society for Hemodialysis) for the last 5-6 years. It is a session to which I have routinely been a contributor.
Though it has been at least intermittently filmed in the past … I do not know if this is to occur this year … and though Bill Peckham, Peter Laird and others have commonly real-time ‘blogged’ and reported the proceedings at their websites, I have no prior knowledge of any plans to disseminate from this years’ sessions. However, I supsect that there may well be the usual blogs from Bill and Peter. I would suggest you ask them. if this is to be their intention.
No … I do not report the conference here at HDC. Unfortunately, my time at the ADC is always full and busy with a number of commitments to the pre-symposia and to the conference itself.
Dori may wish to take the ‘reporting’ idea up for future conferences - or even for this one - but, I am afraid that I already have too much on my plate to take on a reporting role as well.
NB: I trust you have seen the advertisments for the new book coming out on dialysis - authored by Dori and myself. See the post at the top of my HDC page and at the MEI Home page
Are you going to have a bit of time to have some fun? Have you ever been to San Antonio? I went to Trinity University in SA and really loved that town. I hope you like Mexican food. If you do, try to go to Mi Tierra; it’s open 24 hrs a day (at least, it used to be), and it was a favorite late night haunt of mine.
Sadly, no free time but thanks for the suggestions anyway
Aslo sadly, mexican food and I do not mix!
John, I don’t believe either Bill or I will be there this year although I haven’t heard definitely from Bill yet. I almost had an opportunity to speak for one of the vendors, but we couldn’t work out all of the details to my satisfaction. Hopefully next year in Seattle which is just a few hours from our place in Idaho.
It is a great conference. I have enjoyed the speaker slides in years past but this year there are not that many on the ADC site yet. Hopefully, more will show up once the conference gets underway.
Have a great trip and thank you for trying, desperately trying to educate our American nephrology community. Perhaps one day it will stick.
Thanks Peter.
I have just gotten out of the Home HD conference … it was good, but, I fear, it ‘fed’ the same choir.
It is hard to know (but I suspect it may be so) - but I think we are still ‘preaching to the choir’ at that meeting - would that some others might come.
Still, in the years it has been running on an annual basis since it began, as a satellite symposium back in Tampa … was it 2004 ? … I have seen the US home HD numbers creeping up. Now, I am told today, they stand at nearly 1.5% of the national HD pool.
But, I just wish a few would buy tickets to OZ and see my 32%! … or some of my colleague HD services across the nation at 20%+. I can understand why they don’t - day 2 is always the hardest for jet lag - but, it might be edifying for those who are not ‘true believers’.
Yet we (in Geelong) should hang our heads in shame. While it is true that we are the national leaders in home HD, we are NOT the national leaders in home dialysis.
That honor is, I think, currently taken out by Westmead in NSW - the second largest service (I think) in the country - where >60% of all patients are at home, though there PD predominates and their % home HD is only in the high teens or low 20’s.
Our PD is languishing at only at 18% of all dialysis making our home program only at ~50%. Shame on us!
One bright note …
I have just seen the first hard copy of the book Dori and I have co-authored "Help, I need Dialysis’. You wont miss the cover!
I do hope people will get a copy … not because I get royalties (I do) but because its a good effort - mainly Dori’s - and has stuff to say that might just be helpful!
I hope you will try to help us get the message out to folks on dialysis … through ‘IHD’, ‘Hemodoc’ or any other sites you may know.
More importantly, it needs to get out to units, services and patients across the US who don’t read these pages, don’t visit IHD or Hemodoc or here … for they are the ones who need exposure to education.
Maybe one way forward would be for each person who reads this, sees ‘Help, I need Dialysis’ to buy one single copy to donate to the local dialysis service. There are nearly 5000 home HD patients in the US (I heard that today) … and there are about 5500 dialysis units! 1 x copy from each home dialyzor to each 1 x dialysis service almost does it.
Think about that!
John