Fresenius Medical Care wins Red Dot design award for advanced bloodline system used in hemodialysis

Fresenius Medical Care, the world’s largest provider of dialysis products and services, has won the Red Dot Award: Product Design for the company’s 6008 CAREset. This advanced all-in-one disposable with pre-connected bloodlines combines with the 6008 dialysis machine to form the 6008 CAREsystem. The 6008 CAREset was developed for use in all hemodialysis treatments, including Fresenius Medical Care’s advanced HighVolumeHDF dialysis therapy.

The Red Dot Award for outstanding international product design has been presented annually since 1955 by the Design Center North Rhine-Westphalia in Essen, Germany. More than 6,300 products from companies in 59 countries were entered into this year’s competition.

“The 6008 CAREsystem stands for reduced complexity, and minimizes the number of handling steps during dialysis,” said Dr. Olaf Schermeier, Fresenius Medical Care’s Chief Executive Officer for Global Research and Development. “The innovative design of the 6008 CAREset makes a key contribution to this. Because the bloodlines are pre-connected, the medical staff has more time to provide direct patient care. We are delighted about the recognition that this internationally renowned award will bring.”

Handling steps are reduced not only during dialysis, but during the set-up and disconnection phases before and after each treatment. The 6008 CAREset is simply inserted into the dialysis machine, eliminating the need to manually connect the bloodlines: This limits potential connection errors, which makes treatments safer. And in addition to being more cost efficient, the reduced amount of waste generated during a treatment makes the 6008 CAREsystem environmentally friendly.

Dialysis machines, bloodline systems and dialyzers – the latter often dubbed “artificial kidneys” because this is where the blood is actually cleaned – are the most important products for treating chronic kidney disease. During treatment, the dialysis machine pumps the patient’s blood through bloodlines, monitors its circulation through the dialyzer, and adds anti-coagulants. Treatments are generally carried out three times weekly, and take between three and six hours each.

About half of all dialysis machines and dialyzers sold worldwide are produced by Fresenius Medical Care.

More information about the Red Dot Award is available at https://en.red-dot.org.