Seattle Kidney Center is a state-of-the-art treatment and training facility that delivers 30,000 dialysis treatments each year.
The center, at 548 15th Ave. (corner of Cherry Street), opened June 1, 2009. It includes:
- 15 community dialysis stations for patients who can sit in a chair for four hours of treatment three times a week.
- 15 special care stations with a more intensive level of services for patients in unstable and fragile condition who must dialyze in a bed.
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Seattle Kidney Center opens its doors.
View photos from the Sept. 24 Open House: Group 1 /
Group 2
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- Eight stations to provide training and monitoring for patients who give themselves dialysis treatments at home.
- Three isolation rooms so that patients with a communicable illness can get dialysis without going to a hospital.
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In keeping with its mission to promote independence for people who have kidney disease, Northwest Kidney Centers operates one of the country’s largest home dialysis programs, with 200 patients giving themselves treatments at home.
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Seattle Kidney Center includes a peritoneal dialysis training center and the new Sam Rubinstein Home Hemodialysis Training Center which was funded, in part, with a memorial gift from Gladys Rubinstein, whose husband Sam spent 10 years on home hemodialysis.
(Hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis are two methods to cleanse the blood of toxins, remove excess fluid and maintain hormone balance in the body when the kidneys fail to do so. Without dialysis or a kidney transplant, a person with kidney failure can stay alive only a matter of days.)
“This building brings all of our regular and specialized patient services under one roof,” said Northwest Kidney Centers President and Chief Executive Joyce F. Jackson, “and we are open from 5:30 a.m. until 1 a.m. six days a week to help patients fit dialysis in with the other priorities of their lives.”
Jackson acknowledged the work of U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and Washington Rep. Eric Pettigrew to secure federal and state appropriations to support the home dialysis training and health care work force training functions in the building.
Northwest Kidney Centers trains students from the University of Washington School of Medicine, UW School of Nursing, and Medic One—as well as its own employees.
This is the 14th center operated by Northwest Kidney Centers in the Puget Sound region. About 75 percent of all dialysis treatments in King and Clallam counties are delivered by the independent nonprofit, which also provides public kidney-health education and collaborates with UW Medicine on the Kidney Research Institute.
Seattle Kidney Center is one of three dialysis facilities on First Hill. Northwest Kidney Centers also operates the Broadway Kidney Center at 700 Broadway and Elliott Bay Kidney Center at 600 Broadway.
