Teledialysis: The First Northeast Italy Experience of Telehealth in Peritoneal Dialysis

Background: Telehealth may facilitate patient care in peritoneal dialysis(PD).We report our experience with Teledialysis(TD),a combination of PD technique and new technology devices that we used together to overcome clinical,social and psychological barriers toPD. Methods: Pilot study-25 consecutive Automated Peritoneal Dialysis(APD)pts.TD was perform by the combination of 2 systems A- A Web platform Sharesource(Baxter®)that supports remote patient management and provide to the clinician the ability to act on that assessment by updating the cycler. B-Totem eVISUS System(TesiSquare®):a plug-play system consisting of two units:1)a transportable remote station(Totem)equipped with high performance camera,touchscreen monitor,speaker microphone,internet routers for fixed and mobile phone,wireless access point and remote control to answer calls remotely and 2)a Control Station used form our healthcare personnel to connect to one or more pts at the same time[Fig 1].We check all PD sessions by Sharesource and we perform clinical evaluation status with eVISUS System for medications/monitoring of catheter,PD effluent color and to give instructions for PD training/session management. Results: On 24 months-25 consecutive pts(14M/11F)with an average age of 73 yrs[Fig 2].We perform 103 TDsessions with an average duration of 26’ mins/each visit.We don’t detect any exitSite Infection,Tunnel infection or Peritonits;none of our pts require hospital admission. Conclusion: Our results shown that TD is safe,reliable and is easy to use for our pts;we assert that technology can help nephrologist to improve PD program and aid patients to overcome barriers to select PD.Teledialysis promote a real integration between Hospital and our territory by a new care pathway.