April 20, 1971, in Nashville, TN., the Dialysis Clinic, Inc. (DCI) was formed as a non-profit corporation to provide care for End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) patients in an out-patient dialysis facility. Today there are 187 DCI clinics, serving over 11,000 patients throughout the United States.

The Home Dialysis Program at Mid-Missouri DCI offers a full range of home dialysis services including peritoneal dialysis (PD) and hemodialysis (HD). The program provides training, home visits, and follow-up. The DCI team includes physicians, nurses, dietitians and social workers. Both University of Missouri physicians and physicians in private practice follow patients at DCI.

The continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) program, pioneered by Karl D. Nolph, M.D. at the University of Missouri in 1977, moved the outpatient PD program to DCI in 1980. The program has been involved in the development of many innovations in PD therapy including assessment of dialysis adequacy, the peritoneal equilibration test (PET), tidal peritoneal dialysis, exit site assessment and classification, the swan-neck catheters, and clinical trials of new products and PD systems. Both physicians and nursing staff are involved in clinical research and PD education of health care professionals, and have participated in the Annual Dialysis Conference each year since its inception.

DCI Mid-Missouri offers the Baxter UltraBagTM system for CAPD and the Baxter HomeChoiceTM cycler for APD. Each patient is assigned a primary RN, who follows the patient by phone and sees him/her at the regular monthly clinic visit.

The home hemodialysis program expanded and became a part of the home dialysis department in 1997. The home hemodialysis program offers a variety of treatment options: conventional (3 x weekly), daily, and nocturnal dialysis. Home hemodialysis patients are routinely seen in the clinic once each month. A home dialysis nurse is available 24 hours each day to assist home dialysis patients and their families.rn