An apparatus for carrying out selected fluid management and/or renal replacement patient therapy is characterized by an interactive operator control system having operator inputs for selectively changing a panel kit, replacing a filter cartridge, and/or changing to a different patient therapy during a currently running patient therapy, and providing operator instructions for carrying out tasks for completing same. In one embodiment, the interactive operator control system is also characterized by automatically serially identifying different setup steps to be carried out during system setup, displaying the successive steps substantially throughout the system setup as well as displaying on the operator interface screen sequential tasks to be carried out for each of the different setup steps.
