What is the purpose of "venous access on hemodialysis"?

See below: To perform hemodialysis blood needs to pass through a artificial kidney or membrane in a hemodialysis machine.A fairly large volume needs to pass trough the machine and recirculated back to the patient to be an efffective way to "clean" the blood of waste. A large vein needs to be canulated and a large size IV plastic tube needs to inserted into a vein in the neck or groin.

Get and return blood: Hemodialysis requires blood to be drawn from the body, go through the machine to filter out waste products and then return it back to the body. These machines require a high flow of about 400 cc per minute so need either an arterio venous fistula or a catheter in a large vein if dialysis is needed immediately.

Venous access use: Patients on hemodialysis need access to their vascular system to remove blood and send it to the artificial kidney (af). That can be done with an arteriovenous fistula, a graft or a central venous catheter. The arterial part of the access is the part that takes the blood out of the patients body to the af. The blood is returned to the patient via the venous access.