Because the NKC is a nonprofit it reaches out to the community and asks them to partner together to continue with the mission.
"That sense of being part of something bigger than ourselves, we're not an isolated organization or a company that is a member of many communities," Jackson said. "We really see ourselves as being a part of the fabric of the western Washington community and we participate fully with other health care partners and we ask them to help us."
In addition, the continued support of transplant patients with the NKC's pharmacy and information and education even after leaving the dialysis aspect of the renal world.
"We don't abandon them once they are no longer receiving dialysis from them," she said.
The center also contributes time and money to further education of professionals that are coming into the nephrology system.
"This year we supported, we paid the annual salaries for five fellows at the University of Washington, nephrologists, who are doing an extra year of advanced training in nephrology," Sellers said.
Jackson said she feels that it is a shame that the nephrology world hasn't changed in the last 50 years. She feels that since 1962 people came into their treatment center four to eight hours, three times a week and she said that "we are doing the same darn thing today."
Skip forward 50 years to 2062. Will dialysis clinics be the next Starbucks? Jackson really hopes that it never gets that far. She doesn't want to see dialysis centers on every street corner or at the airport or grocery store.
"My hope is for dramatic improvement in kidney care," she said. I hope through research we stop kidney failure, slow kidney failure. I hope through research we have people with an implantable kidney or a wearable kidney. I hope that transplantation is much more common. And finally, what we currently call the dialysis provider, I hope in 50 years people will still have kidneys. I see a continue on in our role as a resource for our community around education and how to live as healthy as possible with kidney care. I really, really hope that dialysis is a dramatically different therapy and that fewer people need it."
Reference
1.http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=gz4eAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PMAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1000,1076647&dq=erythropoietin+and+eschbach&hl=en
