Patients’ and care partners’ perspectives on the design of a vascular connection for a mobile dialysis device

Abstract

The goal of this study is to understand the design needs and preferences of patients and care partners for a needleless vascular connection device called the Ambulatory Kidney to Improve Vitality (AKTIV) Connection. One of the greatest barriers to patients’ self-management of home-based hemodialysis treatments is connecting the dialysis device to their own blood supply. We gathered detailed data on patients’ and care partners’ design needs and preferences with the goal of mitigating this barrier to usage with the AKTIV Connection. In particular, we interviewed 16 hemodialysis patients and 7 care partners using a mixed-method approach of rating and semi-structured questions. Participants indicated they would prefer carrying the AKTIV Connection on or around the waist or in a belt bag. Inductive content analysis showed that the participants considered the ideal AKTIV Connection to connect to a patient’s bloodstream in the chest area, be rectangularly shaped with rounded corners, and have upper size and weight limits in reference to a modern-day smartphone. We also identified 10 categories of ideal features of the AKTIV Connection and 12 categories of concerns related to connecting the AKTIV Connection to a patient’s bloodstream. The findings from this study will help guide the design and development of the AKTIV Connection so that it meets patients’ and care partners’ needs and preferences, ultimately helping improve the quality of life of patients with end-stage renal disease.

Keywords:

• Mobile dialysis device
• mobile medical devices
• vascular access
• interview study
• ESRD
• patients
• care partners
• human factors engineering

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Robin W. Stillwell for conducting interviews and Anna Galperin and Jeremy Barribeau for their comments on this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential competing interests were reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge a grant from the Northwest Kidney Centers to the Center for Dialysis Innovation (CDI) for support during this study.