Katherine Richards

Research

The PhD aims to better align haemodialysis vascular access with patient values and priorities. Haemodialysis is a life saving but burdensome treatment for people with end-stage kidney disease. Patients, clinicians and researchers have identified vascular access (the way we access blood for haemodialysis) as a priority area for haemodialysis research, as vascular access is essential but prone to complications, and can have substantial impacts on patients’ quality of life. In recent years clinicians and researchers have recognised the importance of care that is patient-centered - that is responsive to patient needs and priorities, and that involves shared decision making. Implementing this approach in vascular access care has proven challenging due to uncertainty in outcome data in the published literature, clinician inexperience in a shared decision making approach, a long history of guidelines prioritising one access form over the other, and high literacy demands patients face when embarking on haemodialysis treatment. We have estimated the rate of procedures required to maintain vascular access by linking data from national administrative health records and registry data. We have interviewed patients about values, priorities and experiences of vascular access. We are now developing a decision aid to support shared decision making in haemodialysis vascular access planning.