I recently heard about access blood flow testing at a local ANNA meeting. I'm a little confused about what exactly this test is measuring. Is it the same as blood pump speed? What is the difference between access blood flow and blood pump speed?

Access Blood Flow actually measures the volume of blood going through the access on a per minute basis. Blood pump speed is merely the prescription set by the physician and is not indicative of access blood flow. For example,access blood flow may be measured at 1100ml/min, while the blood pump speed may be set at 400ml/min.