Fresenius Medical Care North America (FMCNA) has expanded its agreement with DaVita Kidney Care to provide NxStage home hemodialysis machines and related technology to DaVita’s U.S. patients.
“We are excited to expand our longstanding collaboration with DaVita to help more patients benefit from the portability, dependability, and flexibility of our NxStage home machines, which are designed to be easy to use,” Joe Turk, president of Home and Critical Care Therapies for FMCNA, said in a news release out today.
Under the agreement, DaVita patients will also access Nx2me Connected Health, a connected health platform that simplifies collection and sharing of treatment information with the dialysis clinic and care team. Nx2me Connected Health accesses treatment information directly from home hemodialysis machines.
Keith Hartman, group vice president for DaVita home modalities, said the NxStage home hemodialysis machines provide invaluable remote capabilities and connectivity.
“By transmitting treatment information, we hope to help identify irregularities and prevent avoidable complications, thus supporting patients’ desire to stay on their treatment of choice longer,” Hartman said.
Fresenius Medical Care closed its $2 billion acquisition of NxStage more than two years ago. Company officials tout the NxStage home hemodialysis machines as the first and only truly portable hemodialysis systems cleared for home use in the United States.
Expanded use of the NxStage machines comes amid a push from CMS — started under the Trump administration — to move dialysis out of clinics and into home settings.
The Kidney Care Choices (KCC) model — now scheduled to start Jan. 1, 2022 — would provide strong financial incentives for healthcare providers’ accountable care organizations to better manage the care for Medicare beneficiaries with chronic kidney disease (CKD) stages 4 and 5 and end-stage renal disease — delaying the onset of dialysis and incentivizing kidney transplantation.