University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics Dialysis History

In 1964, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Iowa City, with federal funding assistance, was one of four centers nationwide to initiate a dialysis treatment program for patients with chronic renal failure. Patients with acute renal failure had received care at UI Hospitals and Clinics since shortly after the Korean War and efforts to establish a separate chronic dialysis unit began in 1969.  

As a teaching hospital, the opportunities at UI Hospitals and Clinics were growing for nephrology fellows from the UI Department of Internal Medicine to include clinical experience with patients with both acute and chronic dialysis needs.

The UI Hospitals and Clinics dialysis center unit opened a four-bed chronic care facility during this period of expansion. Richard Freeman, MD, was appointed to direct the first UI Hospitals and Clinics dialysis program. He was also instrumental in the establishment a home dialysis program and a pioneer in the development of a statewide satellite dialysis unit system.

Today, the UI Dialysis Service and its four satellite clinics in Washington, Muscatine, Grinnell, and North Liberty provide dialysis services.

The availability of dialysis for those with chronic renal failure became financially feasible in early 1970 when both federal and state funds helped families with the cost of dialysis and transplantation.

Today, we can marvel at the medical advances in the treatment of patients with renal disease. Not long ago, permanent kidney failure inevitably led to death. Today, thanks to years of medical research, there are new and better treatments for people with kidney failure.  

Some form of dialysis or transplantation can be offered to virtually every person with kidney failure. Patients now receive their care in their own homes, can benefit from kidney transplantation, or go to more than 60 Iowa community-based dialysis units to receive their care. The use of dialysis, which in its early beginnings was considered experimental, is now widely accepted and available.

Dialysis at UI Hospitals and Clinics has been a pioneer in the field of nephrology and our research activities help provide innovative care and better outcomes for patients. We are dedicated to providing education to the physicians who are invested in providing exceptional medicine to those with chronic kidney disease.