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Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from Intensive Care at Home, where we provide tailor-made solutions for long-term, ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies and where we also provide tailor-made solutions for hospitals and intensive care units whilst providing quality services for long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies and medically complex patients at home including Home TPN (total parenteral nutrition), tracheostomy care for adults and children that are not ventilated, also BIPAP (bilevel positive airway pressure) and CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) ventilation for clients that don’t have a tracheostomy. We also give IV antibiotics at home, IV electrolyte infusions such as IV potassium and IV magnesium. We also manage central line, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) lines, Hickman’s lines, and port access at home as well.
In last week’s blog, I talked about,
MY FATHER HAD A LARGE STROKE, CAN’T MANAGE HIS SECRETIONS & IS VENTILATED. I LIKE TO BRING HIM HOME!
You can check out last week’s blog by clicking on the link below this video:
In today’s blog post, I want to answer a question from one of our clients and the question today is
24/7 ICU Nurses Needed at Home for Ventilated/ Tracheostomy Clients to Avoid Death & ICU Readmissions
Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from Intensive Care at Home, where we provide tailor-made solutions for long-term, ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies and where we also provide tailor-made solutions for hospitals and intensive care units whilst providing quality services for long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies and medically complex patients at home including Home TPN (total parenteral nutrition), tracheostomy care for adults and children that are not ventilated, also BIPAP (bilevel positive airway pressure) and CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) ventilation for clients that don’t have a tracheostomy. We also give IV antibiotics at home, IV electrolyte infusions such as IV potassium and IV magnesium. We also manage central line, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) lines, Hickman’s lines, and port access at home as well.
Now, in today’s video blog, I want to give another warning why you can’t go home with a tracheostomy without 24-hour intensive care nurses. First off, when you look on our website at intensivecareathome.com, you will see the evidence-based Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines and you will see that those evidence-based guidelines that are a result of over 25 years of Intensive Care at Home nursing in Germany and over 10 years of Intensive Care at Home nursing in Australia, clearly say that you can only go home with a tracheostomy or with a ventilator if you have critical care nurses, 24 hours a day. Those critical care nurses need to have a minimum of two years critical care nursing experience at a bare minimum.
Now, I can assure you our third-party accredited Intensive Care at Home nursing services that we employ hundreds of years of critical care nursing experience in our service, combined. I argue there is no other service in Australia that brings that level of skill into the community, which enables us in the end to look after the highest acuity clients in the community, making sure they don’t have to stay in intensive care long term.
So, going back to two clients that we have been working with lately, they inquired for our service, and they wanted to take their loved ones home by themselves without any support because initially, they thought there was no funding for the service.
Now, bear in mind, an ICU bed costs between $5,000 to $6,000 per bed day. Now, Intensive Care at Home costs about 50% of that. Therefore, clearly, Intensive Care at Home is not only improving the quality of life, some instances, quality of end of life for patients and their families. It also saves funding bodies 50% of the cost of an intensive care bed. It’s therefore a win-win situation.
Now, what you can’t do is going home without critical care nurses. In fact, some families wanted to take their loved ones home only to learn but their loved ones bounce back into ICU within less than 48 hours just as we predicted at the time.
So, you can take someone home from ICU or from a ward with a tracheostomy or a ventilator, but you have to do it safely and you have to follow evidence-based guidelines. Once again, use critical care nurses, 24 hours a day, and those critical care nurses must have a minimum of two years critical care nursing experience.
Also, keep in mind, we are the only provider in Australia that is third-party accredited for Intensive Care at Home. There’s no other service that has achieved the level of third-party accreditation and NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) accreditation than we have. There’s no service that has built the intellectual property at home to make Intensive Care at Home possible and also safe.
Now, this is not a video to fear monger, but I can also tell you, I’ve talked about this before that we had some NDIS participants in the past where the NDIS was only funding night shifts with critical care nurses, even though those clients needed 24-hour critical care nurses. We highlighted with the NDIS and to the families at the time that because there was only funding for night shifts that during the day, their loved ones’ lives is hanging at a thread because any small medical emergency with the tracheostomy and the ventilator could cause death without a critical care nurse being there.
Now, unfortunately, we were right, and two clients passed away during the daytime within a short period of time and because they didn’t have critical care nurses. So, it’s very sad.
Make sure it’s safe, make sure you contact us so that you can go home safely. Safety is number one and we can provide that safety for you with our critical care nursing team.
Also, keep in mind, if you think you can go by yourself and you think “Oh, as the last resort, I can call an ambulance.” Now, I can assure you with the healthcare system in the state that it’s currently in 9 times out of 10, you won’t get an ambulance crew that knows what to do with the tracheostomy or with a ventilator, let alone with both. Just heeding a word of warning here because we are in the trenches and we know who shows up when you call an ambulance, just keep that in mind as well.
Now, if you have a loved one in intensive care or you want to go home in a similar situation where your loved one is ventilated, has a tracheostomy or maybe you’re watching it yourself, you’re stuck in an ICU, you can use a mobile phone, you can use an iPad when you’re watching this video, you want to go home, please contact us at intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send us an email to [email protected].
If you don’t have a tracheostomy, but you need BIPAP or CPAP ventilation, please contact us as well. If you’re not ventilated, but you have a tracheostomy, please contact us. For all of those scenarios, you will need 24-hour critical care nursing at home.
If you need Home TPN, Home IV infusions, IV antibiotics, IV potassium infusion. We can help you with that as well. We manage PICC line, central lines, Hickman’s line, as well as port and catheters at home as well.
If you want to find out how to get funding for our service and how it all works, once again, please contact me on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send an email to [email protected].
Currently with Intensive Care at Home, we are operating all around Australia in all major capital cities including all regional and rural areas as well.
We are currently an NDIS approved service provider, TAC (Transport Accident Commission) in Victoria, iCare in New South Wales, NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme in Queensland) in Queensland, as well as DVA (Department of Veteran Affairs) approved service provider Australia-wide. We have received funding through public hospitals, through departments of health, as well as through private health insurances.
Now, I would also encourage you to have a look at our case studies on our website.
Now, we also offer NDIS Level 2 and Level 3 support coordination. If you need an NDIS plan or if you’re not happy with your current NDIS Support Coordinator, please reach out to us as well.
If you’re an NDIS Support Coordinator and you’re looking for nursing care for your NDIS participants or any other case manager, please reach out to us as well, especially if you’re struggling for nursing care for any of the situations that I mentioned earlier and you don’t know how to advocate for nursing funding with the NDIS. We’re also doing nursing assessments for the NDIS. So, please reach out to us as well.
Now, if you are a critical care nurse or a pediatric critical care nurse with a minimum of two years ICU, pediatric ICU, or ED experience, and you ideally have a critical care postgraduate qualification. We want to hear from you if you’re looking for a career change. We are currently having positions in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. We absolutely want to hear from for you. We also currently hire in remote areas in Victoria such as Bendigo, Warragul, and Leongatha.
Now, if you are an intensive care doctor or intensive care specialist, and you have any bed blocks in your ICU, please contact us. We can help you to manage your exit blocks in ICU better by eliminate, by eliminating long-term stays in ICU. We also have our own intensities in our books and we’re currently expanding our intensive care medical team. We want to hear from you as well.
If you are a hospital executive and you’re watching this and you have bed blocks in your hospitals for long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomy, et cetera. We can help you managing your beds in the hospital.
We currently also provide an ED bypass service for the Western Sydney Local Area Health District. If your hospital needs critical care nurses in the home to avoid ED admissions, we can help you with that as well and we want to hear from you as well.
Now, thank you so much for watching.
If you like my videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care and Intensive Care at Home, click the like button, click the notification bell, share the video with your friends and families and comment below what do you want to see next and what questions and insights you have.
Thank you so much for watching.
This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com and I will talk to you in a few days.
Take care for now.
Now, if you have a loved one in intensive care and you want to go home with our service intensive care at home and if you want to find out how to get funding for our service and how it all works, please contact us on one of the numbers on the top of our website, or send me an email to [email protected]. That’s Patrik, just with a K at the end.
Please also have a look at our case studies because there we highlight more about what we can do for clients, how clients can live at home with ventilation and tracheostomies and you can look at our case studies as well at our service section.
Intensive care at home Case studies
And if you are at home already and you need support for your critically ill loved one at home, and you have insufficient support or insufficient funding, please contact us as well. We can help you with all of that.
And if you are an intensive care nurse or a pediatric intensive care nurse with a minimum of two years, ICU or pediatric ICU experience, and you ideally have a critical care certificate, please contact us as well. Check out our career section on our website. We are currently hiring ICU and pediatric ICU nurses for clients in the Melbourne metropolitan area, Northern suburbs, Sunbury, Bendigo, Mornington Peninsula, Bittern, Patterson Lakes, Frankston area, South Gippsland, Drouin, Warragul, Trida, Trafalgar and Moe as well as Wollongong in New South Wales.
www.intensivecareathome.com/careers
So we are also an NDIS, TAC (Victoria) and DVA (Department of Veteran Affairs) approved community service provider in Australia. Also have a look at our range of full service provisions.
Thank you for watching this video and thank you for tuning into this week’s blog.
This is Patrik from Intensive Care at Home, and I’ll see you again next week in another update.