Following the installation of new equipment and several months of staff training, the Frank and Fannie Weiss Renal Dialysis Center at Good Samaritan Hospital is now capable of performing continuous venovenous hemofiltration (CVVH), an advanced and alternative dialysis therapy.

CVVH is a more gentle and gradual dialysis therapy most commonly used in intensive care units for critically ill and unstable patients with acute renal failure. The Weiss Center is the only hospital-based facility in the county offering the procedure.

“There is a large renal population in ours and our neighboring counties. In Rockland County alone, there are more than 200 patients that at any given time may need surgical treatment,” explained Karen Marcus, Director of Renal Services at Good Samaritan Hospital. “There is a definite need in the community for having this treatment available. We are proud to be the first, and only, hospital in the county that now offers it.”

In addition to fulfilling a community health need, CVVH also is an important step for Good Samaritan moving forward with a program for comprehensive cardiac surgery. CVVH is the therapy of choice for any open heart procedure. Additionally, CVVH also is being used in some intensive care units for treating non-oliguric patients, in particular those with multiple organ dysfunction of failure, when treatment includes very large amounts of intravenous fluids.

Benefits of CVVH:
Unstable patients, particular those in scenarios where blood pressure can change rapidly, are often intolerant to the abrupt changes in fluid volume and solute concentration that accompany standard hemodialysis treatments. Because CVVH allows for continuous renal replacement therapy where the removal of solutes and volume and composition modification can occur evenly over time, these patients can be treated safely in a critical situation.

The filtration process in standard dialysis includes connecting circuits to a large artery and vein and blood is pumped by the patient’s heart. In CVVH, a catheter is placed in a central vein; however, blood is propelled by a roller-head pump, allowing the process to work independently of the patient’s arterial pressure.

In CVVH, a patient's blood is passed through an artificial kidney, over a semipermeable membrane. The semipermeable membrane selectively allows plasma water and matter in the blood to cross the membrane from the blood compartment into the filtrate compartment, mimicking the natural filtering function of a kidney. This leads to a considerable loss of fluid from the blood, which is removed as the filtrate in the artificial kidney. Every liter of filtrate fluid that is removed in the artificial kidney, contains a large fraction of the molecules that are dissolved in the plasma, like urea, creatinine, phosphate, potassium, sodium, glucose, amino acids, water-soluble vitamins, and trace elements. In order to keep the blood volume of the patient at a desired (constant) level, a substitution infusion fluid is added to the blood stream in the extracorporeal circuit, after is has passed through the artificial kidney and before it re-enters the patient's vein.

About Weiss Renal Center:
The Frank and Fannie Weiss Renal Dialysis Center is an outpatient facility of Good Samaritan Hospital providing ongoing hemodialysis and continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) services to patients who need kidney dialysis.

The Center is a fully-equipped, twenty-station hemodialysis center and multifaceted CAPD training and monitoring Center. The Center also offers a self-care program for patients to administer their own dialysis treatment under the support and supervision of unit staff.

Good Samaritan Hospital is a member of Bon Secours Health System, Inc., one of the nation’s leading Catholic healthcare systems. It is also part of the regional Bon Secours Charity Health System, which includes St. Anthony Community Hospital in Warwick, NY and Bon Secours Community Hospital in Port Jervis, New York. Additionally, Bon Secours Charity Health System provides the services of a Certified Home Health Agency, two long-term care facilities, an assisted living and adult home facility and several other medical programs. For more information about Women’s Health services, or any other program, contact Good Samaritan Hospital at 845-368-5000.

Media Contact:
John Lonsdorf
R&J Group
(973) 331-1070