The UConn Health Center has contracted with Dialysis Clinic Inc. (DCI), the fourth largest, and the largest nonprofit, dialysis provider in the country, to provide state-of-the art services at the new UConn Dialysis Center.

Affecting one in every 1,000 Americans, kidney failure is most commonly an outcome of diabetes, high blood pressure or other diseases of the kidney. When the kidneys fail, dialysis treatment does the work of the kidney by removing the harmful wastes that build up in the blood. Without treatment the disease will ultimately be fatal.

At the UConn Dialysis Center, patients will be able to undergo life-saving dialysis treatments in a modern facility with highly trained medical professionals providing care. The services at the UConn Dialysis Center will include:

• In-center hemodialysis - a special filter, called a dialyzer, is connected to a machine to cleanse the blood.
  
  
• Continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis - the most common method of home-based treatment. It requires no machine, and the blood is cleansed by means of an abdominal catheter that is filled and drained manually.
  
  
• Continuous cycling peritoneal dialysis - similar to continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis, but a machine regulates the process.
  
  

Andre Kaplan, medical director of the UConn Dialysis Center and professor of medicine in the division of nephrology at the Health Center, says he is pleased with the choice of DCI. "The quality of services it provides, its non-profit status and its commitment to patient care and research is impressive," he says.

DCI is based in Nashville and is affiliated with major universities and teaching hospitals throughout the U.S., including the universities of New Mexico, South Carolina, Cincinnati, California-Davis, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, New York-Syracuse, Tufts and Tulane, to name a few. This will be the company's first site in Connecticut.

The UConn Dialysis Center is located in Talcott Plaza, formerly known as Loehman's Plaza, 230 Farmington Ave., diagonally across the street from the Health Center campus. It has passed state inspection, is open, and is treating patients in both hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis.

Jane Shaskan