Fresenius Medical Care, the Waltham, Mass.-based renal therapy provider, plans to open a dialysis center in Deer Park, Wash., that is to begin accepting patients late this year or early next year.

The Fresenius Medical Care Panorama Dialysis clinic is to be located in a 6,000-square-foot space at 830 S. Main in Deer Park, says Whitney Swindells, a company spokeswoman. Deer Park is located 20 miles north of downtown Spokane.

Swindells says the provider chose to open a clinic there to better serve patients in the area who currently travel north to Colville or south to one of Fresenius' three Spokane-area dialysis centers.

"It makes sense from a patient standpoint to have a clinic closer to their home to lessen the time and effort spent on travel to other locations to receive dialysis," she says in an email.

Patients with kidney disease who require hemodialysis—or the removal of extra fluids and other waste products in the bloodstream—usually must go to a dialysis center three times a week for sessions lasting between three and five hours to have the procedure done by a dialysis machine, information from the provider's website says.

Swindells says the Deer Park clinic initially is to employ three or four people, but more people will be hired as the clinic's patient base grows. It will have the capacity to dialyze up to 36 patients at a time, she says.

James W. Elmer Construction Co., of Spokane, is completing tenant improvements for the dialysis clinic, Swindells says.

She declines to say how much Fresenius is spending on those upgrades.

Fresenius Medical Care operates more than 1,800 dialysis centers across the U.S. Its main Spokane dialysis center is located at 610 S. Sherman, just east of downtown. Other dialysis centers in the Inland Northwest are located on Spokane's North Side and in Spokane Valley, Post Falls, Hayden, and Coeur d'Alene.