CEO Update: Dialysis Center construction progress

CEO Update
• 08 August 2025

Construction on the CMH Dialysis Center is on schedule for a December opening. Dr. Rusty Davis, our nephrologist at CMH, and I recently took a tour to see the progress. We also talked about the services we’ll be providing in this building.

Continue reading the blog or watch the video to learn more about:

• Moving the Nephrology Clinic into the center
• The dialysis room with a great view
• In-home dialysis
• The 2025 opening

Moving the Nephrology Clinic into the center

Davis: It’s very good to have the clinic on one side with the dialysis unit attached. It makes the nephrologist and the nephrology team available to the dialysis patients. Should a question arise, or an emergency occur, we’re always on site and available.

There are a lot of resources in the same building for the patients. We’ll have our dialysis nutrition educator, who can help with our chronic kidney disease nutrition management. We’ll have a social worker to help our patients get to their treatments and make sure they have suitable living conditions and are safe at home. And then there’ll be a lot of crossover between our in-center dialysis nursing and our home dialysis nursing.

Calhoun: The clinic portion of the building is made up of clinic exam rooms where you will see the patients for their routine physician visits. How many exam rooms do we have on this side of the building?

Davis: We’re going to have five exam rooms. We’ll have the ability to get labs in our building, which is beneficial from a clinic and dialysis standpoint. Everything is collected here. On the other end of the hallway, we’ll have our home dialysis unit, which is also accessible to us at any time.

Dialysis room with a great view

Calhoun: The dialysis room is going to be a great space for patients. Immediately when you walk in here, you get a sense for how open and comfortable this is going to be for our dialysis patients. One of the things we were so proud of as we were working through the design was how dialysis patients are going to have a really nice view of nature and not feel confined in a small area.

Davis: Typically, someone on in-center dialysis is on four hours of dialysis three days a week. It’s very time-consuming. This nice, open view looking out into nature will be a huge step up from what they’re used to.

I really hope for a lot of patient satisfaction with just being able to sit in this open space and look out through these big, panoramic windows.

Calhoun: We have 16 total chairs. There will be eight on one side and eight on the other. That was strategically planned. There are just the right number of chairs for patients to be observed by the registered nurses who are on site.

In-home dialysis options

Calhoun: Some patients will have the option to come into the center or do dialysis at home, so they’re not inconvenienced by having to come into a center several times a week. How do patients qualify for in-home dialysis?

Davis: We’ll do an evaluation to see if it’s feasible. We’ll make sure they have living conditions that are safe to do home dialysis. They’ll meet with our team, and we will train the patient in their dialysis modality of choice. We’ve picked out some machines that are very user-friendly for hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. I have good faith in the nurses that we’re training and the patients we’re training that they’ll be successful at home.

Calhoun: I know that people who are dealing with nephrology issues and needing dialysis care feel like a lot of that autonomy is taken away. We’re trying to give some of that back and make it better for them as they’re going through this process.

Opening in 2025

Calhoun: The construction project is making great progress. We look forward to being able to accept new patients at the CMH Dialysis Center by the end of the year.

To learn more about receiving nephrology and dialysis services at CMH, call the CMH Nephrology Clinic at 417-328-7300.

Michael Calhoun shares the latest happenings at CMH in his monthly CEO Updates. He is the CEO/executive director of CMH and the Citizens Memorial Health Care Foundation.