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San Bernardino County-area dialysis centers have widely varying safety records, with some showing higher death rates, hospitalization and infection rates than others, new data available online shows.

The database is developed by ProPublica - a nonprofit that produces independent investigative journalism with significant public interest. It can be viewed at projects.propublica.org.

"I think this is wonderful," said Lori Hartwell, founder and president of Renal Support Network. "The more information patients can have at their fingertips, the better."

Hartwell, who was on dialysis for 13 years before receiving a kidney transplant about a year ago, said "patients need to take responsibility for their care."

She called the site "user friendly and very easy to understand."

Her Glendale-based nonprofit organization provides non-medical services to those affected by chronic kidney disease.

ProPublica created the website two years ago after obtaining data through the Freedom of Information Act. Now ProPublica has added statistics through 2010 and included a new category on emergency room visits.

Approximately 500,000 Americans are being treated for kidney failure, also called end stage renal disease, and of those, more

Dialysis is the process of removing blood from a patient with kidney failure, cleaning the blood and returning it to the body.

Without this treatment - which costs more than $80,000 per year - the patient would die.

Of the 16 categories outlined in the survey, several doctors interviewed felt that the category "mortality versus expected" and infection rates were key for consumers, although they caution people not to make their decision exclusively on numbers.

Doctors also caution against putting too much weight on first-year mortality, because dialysis patients often have serious conditions as secondary effects.

Another measure to watch, they say, is the percent of patients with a fistula - which requires surgery to fuse an artery to a vein, typically in the forearm.

This method tends to reduce the infection rates which plague catheter-based dialysis delivery systems.

New to the study this year is emergency room visits compared to expected emergency room visits.

"The whole thrust of health care reform is to keep people out of hospitals" by managing their conditions better, said Dr. Dev GnanaDev, medical director of Arrowhead Regional Medical Center.

While outcomes vary significantly among 34 San Bernardino County centers and bordering facilities in Los Angeles and Riverside counties, the numbers show that a patient can get quality care in rural areas as well as in metro areas.

Dr. Arshia Ghaffari, a USC assistant professor of clinical medicine, said he believes patient populations of individual dialysis centers can shape government statistics to suggest poorer management of patients.

In the emergency room category, for example, "many unknown factors" can influence the results, he said.

Dr. Harvey Cohen, an internal and geriatric medicine specialist based in Rancho Cucamonga, said patients with kidney failure frequently have heart issues, circulatory problems, and/or high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Cohen said those factors and compliance with strict dietary rules mandated by dialysis treatment have huge effects on a dialysis patient's outcome.

Reach Jim This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call him at 909-386-3855.

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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.

Atlantic City's Resorts Casino Hotel plans to honor its late owner with a $25 gambling chip.

The casino got approval from the state Division of Gaming Enforcement to use a chip honoring Dennis Gomes. The veteran casino executive who died in February of complications from kidney dialysis.

Gomes and co-owner Morris Bailey bought the struggling casino in 2010 and saved it from shutting down.

Gomes is perhaps best known for the string of unusual promotions he used to generate business for casinos. They included a tic-tac-toe-playing chicken, a Barack Obama look-and-sound-alike, and billboards featuring a dancer's naked rear end, and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

The chips will go into use later this year.

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His life had ended, at the age of 33. But then, the Greensboro High assistant baseball and basketball coach's heart started beating again.

He has a gap in his memory. Before he lost consciousness in the ambulance, he was praying, and then he smiled at the nurse. The next thing he remembers is looking at another nurse asking, "Where's my mom?"

There was no white light. He said it was peaceful, and he didn't have a care in the world.

Lewis, an assistant baseball and basketball coach at Greensboro High School, said he does not fear death. And now in life, he only wants things for others.

As a coach, he's found a way to help others in an area that transcends athletics.

"Sports are all right," he said. "But anytime you can let someone know you love them, they're going to try to do their best."

Rewind to 2003 when Lewis was diagnosed with end-state renal disease, a malady in which the kidneys are no longer able to perform their day-to-day functions.

His first reaction was denial.

"It can't be me," he said. "I didn't really know what it was, but most of the things I was hearing, you don't live long, and I kind of figured it can't be me."

Up to that point, Lewis had lived a very active life. He played baseball and aspired to do so professionally. But one day, he felt swollen, and decided to go to the doctor. The biopsy revealed high blood pressure, which led to kidney failure.

In cases where no kidney is available for transplant, the treatment required, called hemodialysis, is a process in which the blood is removed from the body, cleaned and then returned.

Initially, Lewis refused treatment. He went two years without dialysis. He kept working out, exercising and playing baseball. While the doctors told him he was getting worse, he insisted he didn't feel it.

"I told (my doctor) I was still playing baseball, still exercising, still lifting weights," he said. "He was like, 'You're kidding me, right?' "

Lewis defied science. But he wasn't doing it on purpose. He was still in denial and just wanted to keep his life.

What finally got him to start treatment was a cold. He received a shot that triggered a reaction that forced him to start dialysis. His blood was poisoned so badly that he had to undergo dialysis for seven straight days.

A month after that, another shot raised his blood pressure. He was rushed to DCH Regional Medical Center, but it was already too late.

Kind of.

Lewis had defied science again. He was alive.

"The doctor said, 'Do you know you're a miracle?' I said, 'Huh?' " Lewis said.

Although he had a new chance at life, he was still sick and in need of treatment. He came back to the hospital for rehabilitation and stayed there for a month, doing dialysis.

Returning to his normal life meant traveling once again for dialysis. For five years, he had dialysis sessions three times a week, driving from Greensboro to various dialysis centers, mostly in Northport, Tuscaloosa and Demopolis. The trips and treatments left him exhausted. When he got home, he just wanted to sleep.

"He was always tired," said his wife, Diane Lewis. "It was stressful on him. I knew I had to step up and do everything around here."

For a man who had spent his life immersed in baseball, basketball and staying active, the toll of his new lifestyle was more than just physical. Lewis had to schedule his whole life around treatment.

When Reliant Renal Care in Tuscaloosa suggested home hemodialysis, he refused. He had heard that home dialysis would kill a person faster, and that the treatment would be through the stomach, which would tear the lining.

It turned out, however, that the home system was the exact treatment he received at the centers. It took his doctor a year to persuade him to try it.

The home system (NxStage) allows Lewis to undergo treatment on his schedule without scheduling his life around going to a dialysis center.

"My life is back," he said. "I can plan with my family, I can plan trips. The NxStage has really helped me for being as young as I am. Being a minister and coaching, it really helps me get there."

Having his life back also meant coaching at Greensboro High. Greensboro has won the 3A basketball championship two years in a row, but Lewis' real passion lies in baseball.

"I was upset because they started the season when I was still in basketball season," he said. "We lost our first game. We had to play those guys again, and I was back, and we beat them 25-8. That brought on excitement."

The baseball team found out about their coach's condition in October when he had to leave practice one day for dialysis.

"We were very shocked," said senior Keon Paige. "It was a down practice for us. We weren't practicing right. We couldn't do what we normally do, knowing he wasn't there. He's a person we look up to."

While he wants his athletes to improve, what Lewis really aspires to do is teach them about respect and trust. He's an adult they can rely on, a person in whom they can confide.

"He taught me a lot about life, stuff you can and cannot do," Paige said, "things you've got to do right."

Lewis is on the list for a kidney transplant.

Recently, he was second on the list for a donor kidney, but the first name on the list was a match.

But while he waits for a match, it's another thing he doesn't spend too much time worrying about.

"If it happens, it happens," Lewis said. "Whatever God's will is. Some of the things we want and we really can't get them when we want them, it puts us in a situation where we'll try anything to get what we want. Some just have to realize patience, time."

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