According to the National Kidney Foundation, in 2016, 726,331 Americans had kidney failure, and needed dialysis or a kidney transplant to survive.
For many of them, dialysis is a way life.
Dialysis is a treatment that does some of the things done by healthy kidneys and is needed when your own kidneys can no longer take care of your body's needs.
It typically requires spending four hours a day, three days a week, hooked up to a dialysis machine, but nurses at Medical City Dallas say that time doesn't include preparation for each session.
"12 years later you start to think, there has to be a better way," said Medical City dialysis nursing coordinator Maya Gedamu.
Gedamu demonstrates the large dialysis machine that requires sometimes up to 90 minutes of preparation before it can be wheeled to a patient in the intensive care unit.
She says last year, at her request, the hospital purchases two Tablo portable dialysis machines, which are about three quarters of the size of a traditional dialysis machine and designed to work as simply as a smart phone app.
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In fewer than 20 minutes, Gedamu follows the prompts and goes through the checklist of tests and supplies for each treatment.
"It just really allows the nurse more time to be with their patients, talk to them, be able to connect with them, instead of focusing on the machine," says Gedamu.
According to the device maker's website, the Tablo interface is so easy to use, patients can do it on their own.
Richard Crawford of Keller took part in an eight-week at home trial of his Tablo, using the dialysis device at home instead of driving to his dialysis center three times a week.
"I could set it up pretty much all by myself and just get my treatment and then get off. It got to a point when the family didn't have to check up on me. They just yell upstairs, 'Dad. you okay?'" said Crawford.
Tablo is currently undergoing evaluation for home dialysis in hopes of having FDA clearance by 2020.
It received FDA clearance for hospital use in 2014.
