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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 & Children with Tracheostomies and otherwise medically complex long-term ICU Patients by improving their Quality of life and where we also provide tailor made solutions to hospitals and Intensive Care Units to save money and resources, whilst providing Quality Care!
In the last blog I talked about
You can check out last week’s blog here.
In this week’s blog I want to talk about
Home mechanical ventilation quality standards!
After having provided 3rd party accredited quality home intensive care for ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies for over five years now we have learned many lessons of what is working and what isn’t working.
What is definitely working is that when substituting hospital intensive care with home intensive care by sending highly qualified and skilled intensive care nurses into someone’s home instead of intensive care we can predictably shorten the stay of long-term intensive care patients.
We can continue their care and treatment plan at home when it comes to long-term ventilation with tracheostomies as well as other medically complex long-term ICU Patients.
Our numerous case studies give testimony to it here
https://intensivecareathome.com/case-studies/
Home intensive care instead of hospital intensive care does a number of good things and here is an incomplete list of what it is doing
- It improves the quality of life for Patients and their families
- It continues care and treatment episodes at home instead of hospital intensive care and treatment goals can be achieved in a more holistic Patient and family friendly environment
- It reduces the cost of an intensive care bed by over 50%
- It frees up “in-demand” and highly sought after ICU/PICU beds that can be used for other Patients in need of critical care
- It creates choice for Patients and their families
- It creates choice for hospitals and intensive care units
- It brings perspective to intensive care where previous perceptions have been that Patients can only leave intensive care by going to a hospital ward or by leaving intensive care because they die. Nothing could be further from the truth. Patients can leave intensive care because they can continue care and treatment at home by having intensive care nurses going into their home, especially when it comes to long-term ventilation with tracheostomy as well as other medically complex situations that would have kept Patients in intensive care long-term previously
Safety aspect at home is paramount when it comes to intensive care at home services including mechanical ventilation with tracheostomy
The question then arises how is it safe to continue care and treatment on life support such as mechanical ventilation and tracheostomy at home?
If you think about it, in intensive care doctors and nurses have to go through years of specialised training to become competent when it comes to mechanical ventilation and tracheostomy.
They have to start with basic training and then have to complete supervised practical training and education.
It’s like flying an airplane and becoming a pilot.
Related article/video:
Because we are a group of highly skilled intensive care professionals with hundreds of years intensive care nursing experience employed in our service, we are well aware of the safety aspect when it comes to mechanical ventilation with tracheostomy at home.
Therefore, we exclusively provide care and treatment at home to the highest standards possible and those standards are documented in the mechanical home ventilation guidelines.
Those guidelines are a product of over 20 years experience of intensive home care nursing in Germany, the leading country in the world when it comes to intensive care at home services.
I was part of a group of intensive care nurses in Germany about 20 years ago when setting up one of the first services in Germany to provide intensive care at home for long-term ventilated Patients with tracheostomies at home instead of intensive care.
It was only safe because we brought highly skilled intensive care nurses into the home under strict guidelines that are documented in the mechanical home ventilation guidelines here on our website.
https://intensivecareathome.com/mechanical-home-ventilation-guidelines/
We have done the same here when first setting up intensive care at home in Melbourne, Australia.
We have looked at quality and safety first!
Just like the guidelines recommend, we exclusively work with intensive care nurses that have a minimum of 2 years ICU/PICU experience to provide intensive care at home services for long-term ventilated Patients with tracheostomies and other medically complex Patients at home.
As a matter of fact, our average is probably to have 8-10 years ICU/PICU experience per ICU/PICU nurse employed in our service, which makes us very proud!
That means we employ over 200 years ICU/PICU experience in our business combined which gives us significant intellectual capital and intellectual property in this space and makes us a leader in the field!
But we don’t stop there.
On top of following best practice and proven guidelines such as the mechanical home ventilation guidelines we also go through strict annual 3rd party accreditation and certification.
This is another crucial step in managing quality and safety when it comes to looking after ventilated and tracheostomised adults and children at home.
Therefore we are open and transparent and we bring in the people to audit our intensive care at home service.
You can look up our 3rd party accreditation here
https://intensivecareathome.com/accreditationquality/
As of the time as I’m writing this article (July 2019), we’re not aware that any other organisation in the world has achieved such accreditation.
We have therefore accumulated significant and world leading intellectual property with intensive care at home services.
No other organisation has achieved this as of July 2019.
Quality, safety and standards is what we are striving for when it comes to the safe transition of going home from intensive care to intensive home care!
Kind Regards
Patrik Hutzel
Critical Care Nurse consultant
Director
INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME
If you want to find out how we can help you to get your loved one out of Intensive Care including palliative care or Long-term acute care (also nursing home) or if you find that you have insufficient support for your loved one at home on a ventilator, if you want to know how to get funding for our service or if you have any questions please send me an email to [email protected] or call on one of the numbers below.
Australia/New Zealand +61 41 094 2230
USA/Canada +1 415-915-0090
UK/Ireland +44 118 324 3018
Also, check out our careers section here
www.intensivecareathome.com/careers
We are currently hiring ICU/PICU nurses for clients in the Melbourne metropolitan area, northern suburbs, Mornington Peninsula and in South Gippsland/Victoria.
We are 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 here
https://intensivecareathome.com/services
We have also been part of the Royal Melbourne health accelerator program for innovative health care companies last year!
https://www.thermh.org.au/news/innovation-funding-announced-melbourne-health-accelerator
Thank you for tuning into this week’s blog.
This is Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME and I see you again next week in another update!