Northwest Kidney Centers’ Hospital Services

Northwest Kidney Centers’ Hospital Services has been providing inpatient dialysis services to patients in King County-area hospitals since 1981. Working collaboratively with 35 nephrologists, NKC consistently strives to provide services that meet the high quality standards and expectations of physicians ordering dialysis services for their patients while they are in the hospital.

Hospital Services provides the following treatments:
• Hemodialysis
• Hemodialysis with citrate anticoagulation
• Hemoperfusion
• Pump ultrafiltration
• Therapeutic plasma exchange (plasmapheresis)
• Continuous renal replacement therapy
• Peritoneal dialysis  

 

The hospital services department at Northwest Kidney Centers (NKC) has achieved the Gold Seal of Approval™ for health care staffing services from The Joint Commission. An independent, not-for-profit organization, the Joint Commission is the nation's oldest and largest standards-setting and accrediting body in health care. In addition to its stand-alone dialysis centers, NKC has a 55-member hospital services staff providing 11,000 dialysis treatments a year within 10 King County hospitals. Late last year that NKC hospital services department underwent an unannounced, on-site review of its compliance with national standards. Among the areas the Joint Commission reviews are how staffing firms determine the qualifications and competency of their employees, how they place them, and how they monitor performance. 

“Health care organizations that contract with Northwest Kidney Centers can look to this certification as an assurance that NKC demonstrates a commitment to providing and continuously improving quality services,” says Michele Sacco, the Joint Commission’s executive director of health care staffing services certification.

Hospital Services is staffed by 48 registered nurses (RNs) and six dialysis technicians. Under the direction of Medical Director Rex Ochi, MD and Clinical Director Brian Loeppky, RN, Hospital Services provides 11,200 treatments per year to patients at: 

• Auburn Regional Medical Center
• Evergreen Healthcare
• Harborview Medical Center
• Highline Medical Center
• Northwest Hospital Medical Center
• Overlake Hospital Medical Center
• The Regional Hospital
• Swedish Medical Center—Cherry Hill
• Valley Medical Center
• Virginia Mason Medical Center

Hospital Services
Rex Ochi, MD
Medical Director

Brian Loeppky, RN
Clinical Director

(206) 292-3045
8 a.m. – 5 p.m.
24-hour coverage provided