Remote monitoring with automatic hemodialysis system for home hemodialysis

Abstract

For safe hemodialysis therapy, we developed an automatic blood volume balanced ultrafiltration control system. This system controls the ultrafiltration rate automatically according to changes of blood volume to maintain an adequate blood volume level during hemodialysis. With the use of this system, hypovolemic events were significantly reduced. For the purpose of home hemodialysis, we applied this automatic ultrafiltration rate control system combined with remote monitoring. This system monitors blood pressure, pulse rate, blood volume, oxygen saturation, blood flow rate, ultrafiltration rate, intracircuit pressure, transmembrane pressure, dialysate conductivity, dialysate temperature, anticoagulant infusion, and so on. Furthermore, bidirectional audiovisual information between the patient's bedside console and our hospital was also obtained. All the monitoring data were transmitted with internet system by 64K ISDN cable. This is the first report to confirm the efficacy of an automatic hemodialysis system with remote monitoring in a hemodialysis session of a patient outside the hospital.