SP524DEVELOPMENT OF A NOVEL CONNECTION DEVICE FOR PATIENTS ON PERITONEAL DIALYSIS (PD)

Abstract

Background: The dialysis population has changed significantly with an increasing age, multi morbidity and frailty. At the same time, home care is a major trend in health care systems for clinical and financial reasons. Overall PD usage is decreasing due to difficulties preparing elderly patients for PD without additional support. A first need finding suggested that there exists the need to develop a novel auto-connect device for PD patients, to overcome current hurdles to PD use. The aim was to understand how such a device could support home care patients and what functionalities would be required to better standardize the therapy. Methods: The user interface of functional prototypes were tested with more than 30 PD patients, nurses and doctors. Based on the feedback of the test persons, we optimized and iterated the functional prototypes six times over a period of 18 months. Results: During the tests we identified the following needs for an auto-connect device: (1) a connecting mechanism to accommodate both continuous ambulatory PD (CAPD), as well as automated PD therapy, (2) a therapy guidance that leads the patient through drain, flush, fill, preventing user errors, (3) an antiseptic environment that may better protect the patients from infections, (4) a user interface that was suited for the respective users. After six generations, it was felt that these were merged in a final product design. Conclusions: The new prototypic device could allow more patients to be treated at home, better protect these patients from infections, further standardize the PD therapy, and support assisted home care models.