10/1/2009 2:29:00 PM State-of-the-art kidney center
has opened on the Hill
A final image from the Sept. 24 open house at the Seattle Kidney Center. David Loud, aide to U.S. Rep Jim McDermott, makes common cause with Northwest Kidney Centers mascot Sidney the Kidney. photo/Mike Penney
Nonprofit Northwest Kidney Centers, predominant provider of kidney dialysis in King County, has opened the Seattle Kidney Center, a state-of-the-art treatment and training facility that will deliver 30,000 dialysis treatments each year.
Located at 548 15th Ave. (corner of Cherry Street), the facility opened June 1 and features:
• 15 community dialysis stations for patients who can sit in a chair for four hours of treatment three times a week;
• 15 special care stations with a more intensive level of services for patients in unstable and fragile condition who must dialyze in a bed;
• three isolation rooms so that patients with a communicable illness can get dialysis without going to a hospital;
• eight stations to provide training and monitoring for patients who give themselves dialysis treatments at home.
Northwest Kidney Centers operates one of the country's largest home dialysis programs, with 200 patients giving themselves treatments at home. Seattle Kidney Center includes a peritoneal dialysis training center and the new Sam Rubinstein Home Hemodialysis Training Center. The latter facility was funded in part with a memorial gift from Gladys Rubinstein, whose husband Sam spent 10 years on home hemodialysis.
Hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis are two methods to cleanse the blood of toxins, remove excess fluid and maintain hormone balance in the body when the kidneys fail to do so. Without dialysis or a kidney transplant, a person with kidney failure can stay alive only a matter of days.
"This building brings all of our regular and specialized patient services under one roof," said NKC president and chief executive Joyce F. Jackson. "We are open from 5:30 a.m. until 1 a.m. six days a week to help patients fit dialysis in with the other priorities of their lives."
Jackson acknowledged the work of U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and Washington Rep. Eric Pettigrew to secure federal and state appropriations to support the home dialysis training and health care work force training functions in the building.
Northwest Kidney Centers trains students from the University of Washington School of Medicine, UW School of Nursing and Medic One - as well as its own employees.
Seattle Kidney Center is one of three dialysis facilities on First Hill, along with NKC's Broadway Kidney Center at 700 Broadway and Elliott Bay Kidney Center at 600 Broadway.
