Our Product
TrackSmart™
A painless, repeatable connection to the arteriovenous fistula for hemodialysis
TrackSmart™
Vascular access for routine hemodialysis, without use of dialysis needles.
Devices replaced every 28 days
Uses blunt dialysis cannulas for AVF/blood stream access
Allows for self-cannulation and self-activation
Skin contact biocompatible
Shower-proof
How It Works
The TrackSmart™ AVF Repeat Access system incorporates two hub-and-port devices (one for blood to the machine, one for blood returned to the patient), that are affixed to the patient’s arm providing repeatable pain-free connection to the AVF. Access to the AVF for hemodialysis is achieved with the use of two blunt dialysis cannulas. The two devices are replaced every 28 days.
Watch how it works in the video below.
Step 1
TrackSmart™ Hub-and-port With Novel Sheath Placed Into The Patient’s AVF
The hub-and-port devices each contain a novel sheath that is inserted into the patient’s AVF by a dialysis clinician, in much the same way a standard dialysis needle is inserted. The sheath is pre-mounted onto a razor-sharp placement needle which has a Huber-tip, ensuring a neat semi-circular incision in the AVF blood vessel wall.
These two small, sleek devices remain neatly & effectively affixed to the patient’s arm, providing a repeat connection to the AVF for hemodialysis treatment. The devices are replaced every for 28 days.
Step 2
TrackSmart™ Single-Use Blunt Dialysis Cannulas Used For Dialysis Vascular Access
Nurses now can access the patient’s bloodstream in a new way, by easily & painlessly advancing a blunt dialysis cannula through each hub-and-port device that is affixed to the patient’s arm. This replaces the step that normally involves the insertion of sharp dialysis needles into the patient’s arm.
With this superior approach, patients can easily self-cannulate and self-activate treatment, allowing much easier home hemodialysis.
For Dialysis Treatment
TrackSmart™ blunt dialysis needles are advanced easily and painlessly through the hub-and-port devices into the AVF for dialysis access.
In-Between Dialysis
TrackSmart™ safety plugs with anti-bacterial sponge interior are clipped into the hub-and-port devices, providing comfortable & confident protection of the fistula in-between dialysis treatments. An over-patch (not shown) is placed over each hub-and-port devices for water-proofing.
Transforming Dialysis Care
Experience the future of streamlined solutions that enhance patient comfort and provider efficiency.
FAQs
Not yet. The device is investigational and is currently in development. Rigorous testing is required before it can be used by patients. It is estimated that TrackSmart™ will be available during 2026.
Haemodialysis is a life-sustaining therapy needed by patients with permanent kidney failure, where a dialysis machine, connected to the bloodstream of a patient, does the work of the kidneys. Excess water and waste products formed during normal metabolism is cleared from the body. Remarkably, our kidneys receive 20% of cardiac output – this means that in 5 minutes our entire blood volume is circulated through the kidneys! In 24 hours our blood passes through the kidneys almost 300 times. Patients with chronic kidney disease usually have slowly deteriorating kidney function. When this decreases to only 10-15% of normal function, dialysis treatment becomes necessary. The kidneys are one of the ‘vital organs’ and we cannot live without them. Hence dialysis treatment is required several times per week by these patients, and for the rest of their lives.
An AV-fistula (AVF) is created when a doctor joins an artery and an arm vein during a medical procedure. Traditionally this entailed a fairly cumbersome surgical procedure performed in the operating theatre (s-AVF), but nowadays an AVF can be created using a less-invasive, percutaneous procedure in a radiology department (p-AVF). Once the arm vein is connected to the artery, both the pressure and flow in the vein (now called a fistula) increases dramatically. This causes widening and thickening of the vessel, with the vessel wall becoming stronger and elastic. After 4-6 weeks the AVF can be used as a vascular access vessel for connecting a dialysis machine to the bloodstream. This is done by inserting 2 thick dialysis needles, which are connected with tubing to the dialysis machine, into the AVF. One needle is for extraction of blood by the dialysis machine and the other for returning blood that is cleared of waste products and excess water to the patient. A dialysis machine, which incorporates a pump and a filter system, must ‘treat’ massive amounts of blood during each 2-to-4-hour treatment session since, and so the flow in an AVF can easily be around 750ml/min. At this rate, a person’s entire blood volume passes through the AVF every 7 minutes.
Just like two dialysis needles are required for dialysis, each patient requires a pair of TrackSmart™™ devices. But the difference ends there: Whereas dialysis needles which must be inserted and removed at each dialysis treatment (i.e. 24 or 32 needles per month for patients on 3 or 4 treatments per week, respectively), the two TrackSmart™ devices are placed once per month only, using a sharp placement needle much like a dialysis needle.
Once the TrackSmart™ devices are placed in the AVF, they act as a guide for the pain-free and hassle-free insertion of blunt dialysis cannulas into the AVF for dialysis bloodstream access. In fact, patients can easily insert these blunt cannulas themselves, even in the home. This means that, unlike in the case of for the use dialysis needles, there are now new skin puncture sites and ‘holes’ made in the AVF wall. With TrackSmart™, repeated access to the bloodstream is achieved by using the same hole or ‘track’.
The pair of TrackSmart™ devices are swapped out for new devices once a month in order to prevent infection and thrombosis, which are the biggest risk for any such devices that remain in the bloodstream for a period of longer than a few days.
Infection risk is kept low by creating a sterile field around each TrackSmart™ device throughout the 28-day attachment to the patients’ arm: Cyanoacrylate glue (medical superglue) is used to keep the skin entry site (of the devices) sealed, whilst a povidone iodine solution contained in the over-patches that cover the devices keep the entire device and skin entry site constantly bathed in a sterile ‘surgical field’.
Regarding thrombosis risk: Flow in an AVF is unusually fast with very large volumes of blood passing through it. The portion of the TrackSmart™ device that is positioned within the blood vessel has a small shape and size (around 2% of the luminal area of the vessel), and hence risk of thrombosis is not considered a major risk.
Each time an AVF is punctured by a dialysis needle some weakening of the wall occurs. Back-wall injury and hematomas (tissue bleeding that occurs when the sharp needle injures the far side of the AVF) is also relatively common. The TrackSmart™ device will radically reduce needle-stick related AVF damage. TrackSmart™ will however have no influence on swing-point narrowing of the AVF, which is flow-related and occurs where the vessel makes a sharp turn.