Published Sunday, April 11, 1999 More than 20 million Americans have some sort of kidney or urologic disease.
With those numbers increasing, many centers such as Dialysis Clinic Inc., Hermitage, are opening throughout Mercer County.
The clinic is affiliated with UPMC Horizon. Sharon Regional Health System also is affiliated with a clinic, United Community Hospital has one on site while another clinic serves Mercer residents.
Formed in 1971, Dialysis Clinic Inc. is a nonprofit company operated by a group of university-based renal specialists in Nashville, Tenn. The centers are among the only nonprofit ones in the country.
"A lot of the proceeds are directed back to research," said Deborah Gerlach, the clinical supervisor. "$80 million is spent setting up new centers because people were driving an average of 50 to 60 miles to have treatments. The demand is there."
The goal of the group is to have a clinic within a 20 mile drive for patients.
Dialysis is a medical treatment for people with renal failure to compensate for the loss of kidney function. Kidney disease can be triggered by diabetes, high blood pressure or hypertension, said Dr. Hassan Hassad, one of the doctors from the clinic.
Hassad's office is right in the clinic, allowing for easy checks on patients.
"I do weekly rounds with patients," he said, adding that in some clinics, the patients may only see a doctor once a month.
Ms. Gerlach said people feel more comfortable having the doctor on hand.
The Hermitage-based clinic also tries to treat the whole person, looking into diet and social counseling as well as transplant referrals and monthly blood work for transplant eligibility.
Diet is a major problem for those who are on dialysis, and Ms. Gerlach said the clinic works with patients to improve their nutrition.
"We do a lot of work to improve their intake of protein, potassium, water and salt," she said.
Employees also help patients deal with financial issues, since treatments may interfere with their ability to work full time.
"We work with family support also because this can be stressful because of things such as transportation arrangements," Ms. Gerlach said. "We try to help as much as we can, so they don't feel stressed out."
The clinic offers two types of dialysis -- one in house and one in the home.
Home dialysis includes patients learning from a nurse how to perform blood-cleaning themselves.
"The patient is then seen about twice a month," Haddad said.
The difference between going on clinical dialysis and performing it at home is, among other things, the person's lifestyle and level of independence, the doctor said.
