Quick Tip:

If you have diabetes or high blood pressure, you are at high risk for kidney disease.

 

1 in 7 adult Americans has kidney disease, but most don’t know it.

  
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Our History

Northwest Kidney Centers was established in 1962 as the world’s first outpatient dialysis treatment center. We are grateful to have been a vital part of the health of the Puget Sound region for more than 40 years.

1960
scribner Chronic kidney failure (irreversible kidney failure) was once a fatal disease. Dr. Belding Scribner of the University of Washington developed the Scribner shunt, tubes in a forearm artery and vein that made long-term dialysis possible for the first time.
Dr. Christopher Blagg, NKC's emeritus executive director, writes in Hemodialysis International about the breakthrough in Seattle.
  


1961

haviland Dr. Scribner turned to Dr. James Haviland, then president of the King County Medical Society, for help to establish a community-supported outpatient dialysis center. The medical society and the Seattle Area Hospital Council worked together to establish the center. Funding support came from a variety of sources, primarily the John A. Hartford Foundation and the U.S. Public Health Service.

 

1962

elklind As a result, the Seattle Artificial Kidney Center (SAKC) opened Jan. 1, 1962. Eventually renamed Northwest Kidney Centers, it was the world’s first out-of-hospital outpatient dialysis treatment center. 


Originally located in the basement of Eklind Hall, then the nurses’ residence for Swedish Hospital, the center contained three beds. Up to nine patients could be dialyzed overnight twice a week.


In these early years, funding for dialysis was extremely limited and rigid patient selection allocated the few available places. A committee of physicians screened potential patients by strict medical criteria. Medically suitable candidates were then further reviewed by an anonymous lay committee which decided who would get treatment. This difficult decision was based on medical and financial criteria, the perceived ability to adjust to dialysis, family status and the patient’s potential contribution to or burden on society. This committee was active until 1971. By then, support from the State of Washington, private insurance and the community was sufficient that all patients referred by their doctors could be treated. 


1963

The center became incorporated as a nonprofit organization.  
 

1964

In 1964, the center expanded to 10 stations serving 47 patients—growth that led to financial strain. At this time, Dr. Scribner and his team at the UW developed home hemodialysis, much less expensive than in-center dialysis.

1967

The SAKC opened its own home hemodialysis training and support program. It has continually ranked among the largest home dialysis programs in the United States.


1970

Pioneering research at the UW by Drs. Fred Boen and Henry Tenckhoff had developed peritoneal dialysis as an alternate treatment. This treatment does not use an artificial kidney; instead fluid in the abdomen and the membrane lining the abdominal cavity are used to filter waste products from the body. Peritoneal dialysis was first offered through the SAKC in 1970.
Because patients now traveled from all parts of Western Washington and from Alaska, the center’s name was changed to the Northwest Kidney Center (NKC).

1971

Federal funds become available to develop programs to retrieve and distribute organs for transplantation and to fund laboratories to match donors and recipients. NKC set up the Northwest Organ Procurement Agency to serve Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho. Only the second such regional organization in the country, the program provided kidneys to transplant programs at the UW Medical Center, Swedish Medical Center, Virginia Mason Hospital and Children’s Hospital. 

 

1973
In 1973, Congress made almost all patients with end-stage kidney diseases (ESRD) eligible for Medicare. With this additional support—along with private insurance, the State Kidney Disease Program and Medicaid—the center became financially stable. 


1978

The NKC peritoneal dialysis program began to offer continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) and later continuous cycling peritoneal dialysis (CCPD). 

 

1982 

In November 1982, NKC consolidated services at 700 Broadway, now called the Haviland Pavilion and housing the Broadway Kidney Center. Over the next 21 years, additional units were acquired or opened throughout King and Clallam counties. 
 

In addition to the centers, a hospital services program that provided acute dialysis and related treatments in many Seattle hospitals was headquartered in the flagship building at 700 Broadway. 

    

1988
NKC, the Puget Sound Blood Center and the UW Department of Orthopedics jointly founded the Northwest Tissue Center in 1988. Housed at the Blood Center, the tissue center provides human bone, tendons, skin and other tissues for transplantation.


1989
NKC was chosen as the first site for human studies on erythropoietin (EPO), a hormone genetically engineered by Amgen, Inc. EPO is produced in healthy kidneys to stimulate red blood cell production. Most dialysis patients are anemic because their diseased kidneys make very little EPO. Injections of EPO treat this anemia and improve patient well-being and quality of life. Federal Food and Drug Administration approval was granted in June 1989.    

 

1999
NKC became the lead center in studies for FDA approval of the Aksys PHD System for home more frequent hemodialysis five or more times a week. This technique was shown to provide much better patient survival than conventional three-times-a-week center dialysis. The Aksys Company went bankrupt, but by that time NxStage also had developed a device for more-frequent dialysis. The NxStage line remains in use today. NKC still has one of the largest home hemodialysis programs and one of the largest peritoneal dialysis programs in the country.  

 

  

2008

NKC and the University of Washington established the Joseph W. Eschbach Endowed Chair in Kidney Research shortly before Dr. Eschbach’s untimely death. They also established the Kidney Research Institute (KRI), a joint venture to investigate causes and improved treatments for kidney disease. Dr. Jonathan Himmelfarb was appointed to the chair and became the first director of the KRI. 
 

Kent Kidney Center opened late in the year, providing community dialysis services as well as special care for more seriously ill patients. For the first time in NKC’s history, special care was available at a site besides downtown Seattle.  NKC’s Hospital Services program was accredited as a health care staffing services agency by The Joint Commission.  

 

2009 

Seattle Kidney Center at 15th and Cherry is scheduled to admit patients beginning June 1. The three-story building houses a community dialysis center, special care unit, and training areas for home hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. 


That brings the total of NKC’s dialysis centers to 14. In central Seattle are the Seattle, Broadway and Elliott Bay Kidney Centers, as well as Scribner Kidney Center in Northgate and West Seattle Kidney Center. Outside Seattle are kidney centers in Auburn, Bellevue (Lake Washington Kidney Center), Kent, Kirkland (Totem Lake Kidney Center), Lake Forest Park (Lake City Kidney Center), Port Angeles, Renton (Mount Rainier Kidney Center, SeaTac and Snoqualmie Ridge. Administrative services are located at the Blagg Pavilion in Lake Forest Park, in a building shared with the Lake City Kidney Center.