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Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com where we provide tailor-made solutions for long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies at home and where we also provide tailor-made solutions for hospitals and intensive care units at home whilst providing quality care for long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies at home, otherwise medically complex clients, adults and children at home, which includes Home BIPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure), Home CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure), home tracheostomy care for adults and children that are not ventilated, Home TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition), home IV potassium infusions, home IV magnesium infusions and home IV antibiotics. We also provide port management, central line management, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line management as well as Hickman’s line management, and we also provide palliative care at home.

We are also sending our critical care nurses into the home for emergency department bypass services as we have done in the past for the Western Sydney Local Area Health District, their in-touch program.

So today, I have an email from Dawn who says,

“My son is 25 years of age, and he is in a rehabilitation facility at the moment with the tracheostomy. He has spent months in ICU. My son is paralyzed from the waist down and he’s still tracheostomy dependent. It was supposed to be weaned off 12 months ago, but currently, they’re saying he can’t be weaned off the tracheostomy.

Now, I went to visit my son in the rehabilitation facility and his room was disgusting, and he tells me how bad he’s being treated in the rehabilitation facility. Now, my son is there for two hours away from my home. Is there any way that Intensive Care at Home can help me to get him home?

I’m a desperate mom that needs her son closer to home and taken care of properly.”

Well, Dawn, I’m very sorry to hear about your son’s situation. It’s not unusual that we see this. We see it all the time that once patients leave ICU with a tracheostomy, that no matter where patients go, whether it’s a rehab facility, whether it’s a hospital ward or a hospital floor, that they’re not being looked after properly. I can understand how scary this must be for you as a mother and how scary this would be for your son.

So, it’s really good from you that you reach out to us because that is exactly what we do. All we do is look after adults and children at home that are either ventilated and/or have a tracheostomy, that’s all we do. We are highly specialized in that, and we also have third party accreditation for it.

I can see from your email that you are located in Australia. We are currently operating all around Australia in all major capital cities and in all regional and rural areas. Given that your son is 25 years of age, he would also qualify for NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) funding. So, your situation might not be as desperate as you think it is. It sounds to me like you just haven’t met the right people yet and you just haven’t engaged with the right people yet that can help your son with this very unfortunate and potentially desperate situation.

The biggest challenge in those situations is always that people don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know what to look for. They don’t know what questions to ask. They don’t know their rights and they don’t know how to manage the hospital system or the NDIS system, for that matter.

Before things will get worse, it’s a very good idea that you and I get on a phone call and then I can map out the next step and make sure your son gets 24-hour nursing care at home with intensive care nurses, which is by the way, also evidence-based. If you go to our website intensivecareathome.com, you can check out the Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines and you can actually see that for anyone with a tracheostomy at home, that is paralyzed or can’t help themselves, they need to have 24-hour intensive care nurses at home with a minimum of two years ICU or critical care nursing experience. That’s once again, that’s all we do here at intensivecareathome.com.

Now, with Intensive Care at Home, currently we’re operating all around Australia and in all major capital cities and in all regional and rural areas. We are a NDIS accredited Intensive Care at Home nursing service. We are TAC (Transport Accident Commission) approved in Victoria, WorkSafe approved in Victoria, iCare in New South Wales, and NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme) in Queensland. We are also a DVA (Department of Veteran Affairs) approved service provider all around Australia. Our clients have received funding through public hospitals, private health funds as well as departments of health.

Like I said, we are the only service in Australia that is accredited for Intensive Care at Home nursing. We are third party accredited for that. There’s no other organization in the country in 2024 that has achieved the same level of accreditation than we do or that brings the same level of skill in the community. We are employing hundreds of years of intensive care nursing experience combined into the community. I believe that is unmatched in 2024 in Australia.

We are also providing Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS Support Coordination which is critical for most NDIS participants in a situation like your son is in, Dawn.

If you’re at home already in a similar situation and you realize you don’t have enough support, you don’t have the ICU nurses that can take care of you or your family member properly, 24 hours a day, or your family member or yourself is going back to hospital all the time, I strongly encourage you to reach out to us as well here at intensivecareathome.com because we keep our clients at home predictably because you don’t want your family member or yourself going back to hospital and to ICU all the time. Our success rate on keeping patients at home and our clients at home predictably is very, very high.

If you are a NDIS support coordinator and you’re looking for nursing care for your participants, please reach out to us as well. If you’re looking for funding for more nursing care, I also encourage you to reach out to us. We can help you with the advocacy and we also provide specialist NDIS nursing assessments.

If you are a critical care nurse and you’re looking for a career change, we are currently offering jobs for critical care nurses in the home in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, in Albury, Wodonga, in Bendigo in Victoria, as well as in Warragul in Victoria. If you have worked in critical care for a minimum of two years, pediatric ICU, ED, and you have already completed a postgraduate critical care qualification, we will be delighted hearing from you.

We are offering a tailor-made solution to our clients, which includes regular staff. Our clients want to have the same staff coming over and over again because they are so vulnerable and it’s all about building those critical relationships and having regular and stable teams. So, if you are looking potentially for agency work where you can come and go, this may not be the right fit for you. But if you are interested in a long-term engagement with us and a long-term engagement with our highly valued clients and building those crucial relationships, then this is a win-win situation for everyone.

If you are an intensive care specialist or ED specialist, we also want to hear from you. We are currently expanding our medical team.

Once again, here at Intensive Care at Home, if you have bed blocks in your ICU or in your ED, we can help you alleviate some of your bed blocks for your long-term patients or patients that come in frequently. We can help you take the pressure off your ICU and ED beds and in most cases, you won’t even pay for it.

If you’re a hospital executive watching this and you have bed blocks in your ICU, ED, and respiratory wards, please reach out to us as well.

Lastly, if you’re in the U.S. or in the U.K. and you’re watching this, we want to hear from you as well. We can help you there privately.

All of that you get at intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send us an email to info@intensivecareathome.com.

If you like my videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for Intensive Care at Home and for families in intensive care. Click the like button, click the notification bell, share the video with your friends and families, and comment below what you want to see next, what questions and insights you have.

I also do a weekly YouTube live where I answer your questions live on the show and you will get notification for the YouTube live if you’re a subscriber to my YouTube channel or a subscriber to our email newsletter at intensivecareathome.com.

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.