Dialysing Nearer to Home

SusQI project completed as part of the UK Kidney Association and Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Kidney Care Sustainability Group Scholars Programme.

Key Learning Point:
Dialysing nearer to home improves patient experience whilst impacting positively on the environment and reducing financial spending looking at the triple bottom line.

Issue to be addressed:
Increasing numbers of patients are requiring dialysis resulting in increased hospital transport use. Renal is known to be the largest users of hospital transport.

Our three satellite haemodialysis units cover different areas with transport taking up to two hours to pick patients up from their home to up to 2 hours to collect them from the unit to take them home.

Intervention:

This project explored how to improve patient experience, increase active travel of patients to the satellite unit and reduce hospital transport.

Specific Aims
1) Dialyse patients nearer to home thereby reducing carbon footprint due to travel
2) Encourage patients who have moved nearer to their home to use active travel or public transport to reduce hospital transport costs.

Results
Total number of patients to transferred nearer to their unit = 39

Patient outcomes:
- Patient satisfaction increased.

- No change in DNA rate as precipitated by illness/did not DNA previously, and one patient began attending full sessions.

Population outcomes: 

- Health outcomes may be improved with reduction of polluting vehicle transporting longer distances.

Environmental benefit:
- Overall reduction for moving 39 people closer to home in a single centre = 6.74 tonnes of CO2e per year.

Economic benefit:
- Minimum Total savings: £72,775.56 per year

Social sustainability:
Total time saving: 554 minutes for 1 session.

For more information see attached report.