International Home Dialysis Consortium
Our society joined efforts with the International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis (ISPD) to address the need for a coordinated effort to increase access to home dialysis, both peritoneal dialysis (PD) and home haemodialysis (HHD) globally in both high- and lower-income countries. To enable home dialysis growth, the barriers to the adoption of home dialysis need to be recognized, and actions developed to surmount them.
To achieve its aims, the International Home Dialysis Consortium (IHDC) has formed a globally representative steering group of dialysis clinicians (medical and nursing), including representatives from ISN and ISPD, but also other global partners such as IPNA and the ISHD, and regional organizations such as AFRAN, SLANH, and APSN, and representatives from industry stakeholders.
By engaging with national and regional nephrology societies, patient organizations, researchers developing regional innovations, commercial partners with interests in PD and HHD, and those responsible nationally for healthcare policies and funding, the IHDC wants to leverage ideas, efforts, and advocacy worldwide with the ultimate goal of bringing the benefits of home dialysis to more patients in need.
The consortium focuses on implementation, building on the work already done to promote home dialysis and identify the main barriers– in particular the KDIGO Controversies Conference that focused on how modality choice and distribution are determined and strategies to expand the use of home dialysis.
The IHDC Steering Committee has been working since 2022 to integrate as many partners as possible and to set the grounds for the work of the IHDC in 2024 and 2025. The first events of the IHDC took place in 2024 in Argentina and Dubai. In 2025 we will focus in South Asia.
All forms of kidney replacement therapy (KRT) are potentially lifesaving, and a key priority for all countries should be to ensure that KRT is available and affordable for everyone with kidney failure. However, to those who already have access to KRT, home dialysis has special advantages. Providing home dialysis (peritoneal dialysis and home haemodialysis) holds the promise of enhancing patient experience, quality, and equity in kidney failure care by allowing wider global access to kidney replacement therapies.
This manifesto is a public declaration advocating for the promotion of home dialysis globally by:
- Raising awareness of the benefits of home dialysis to people with kidney disease
- Educating all people with kidney failure needing dialysis and their caregivers on all available options, including home dialysis
- Offering home dialysis as part of an integrated patient-centered and value-based care approach for people living with kidney failure in all healthcare settings
- Enabling people with kidney failure to choose dialysis modality with shared decision-making in all healthcare settings and with planned or unplanned dialysis start
- Empowering and supporting patients through self-management to have as much responsibility for their dialysis treatment as is appropriate
- Educating and training healthcare providers, including nephrologists, nurses, primary care providers, dietitians, social workers, and technicians in home dialysis
- Engaging policymakers, payors and dialysis industry to support home dialysis growth initiatives, adapting actions to local needs and economic realities
- Working with nephrology professional societies, patient advocacy groups and commercial dialysis providers to develop a global framework to provide home dialysis services
- Creating policy briefs to support advocacy efforts with policymakers
- Creating tools and audit processes to support continuous quality improvement in home dialysis programs
- Facilitating design of reimbursement schemes that are value-based and considering the total costs of delivering dialysis care, including costs of infrastructure
- Ensuring provision of fair and equitable reimbursement for home dialysis removing financial disincentives and actively promoting optimal patient choice of dialysis modality and location
Sign the IHDC Manifesto
The IHDC Manifesto has already been signed by the ISPD and the ISN. The IHDC invites other organizations to read the manifesto and join us in calling for the promotion of home dialysis globally
We request that you ask your national society to consider signing the IHDC manifesto and commit to work to increase access to home dialysis therapies for those needing kidney replacement therapies. Please get in touch with the ISPD Secretariat (admin@ispd.org) and we shall inform you of the next steps.