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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 adults and children at home, which includes home BIPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure), home CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure), and home tracheostomy care for adults and children that are not ventilated, Home TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition), home IV potassium infusions, home IV magnesium infusions, as well as 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 services at home.

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

So, this week, we hosted our own networking event in Sydney and there’s a YouTube live on our channel where you can watch the networking event and you can watch some of the things that we discussed, you can hear more about the history of Intensive Care at Home and also about our operations in Sydney.

Now, interestingly enough in the networking event, we brought stakeholders of the industry together that have a vested interest in bringing quality services into the community when it comes to long-term ventilation and tracheostomy as a genuine alternative to a long-term stay in intensive care.

Now, one of my business associates there was breaking some news to me and I’m not going to mention names here. But the reality is that I’ve been publicly saying it for many years that adults and children in the community have died on a ventilator with the tracheostomy because either support workers or even general registered nurses without intensive care nursing experience could not manage medical emergency for ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies in the community and therefore, people have died.

Now, like I said at the industry event, one of my business associates was telling me that another death has occurred just last week in Australia because a support worker apparently went out with a ventilated client didn’t take a spare battery with them when they went out with a ventilator, which should be common sense. They had no emergency equipment with them and the patient, or the client died.

So that’s another patient, that’s at least 8 patients now in the last 6, 7, or 8 years that we know of that have died in the community because no evidence-based services were provided to them.

So, what do I mean with evidence-based services? So, what I mean by that is when you go to our website intensivecareathome.com, you will find the section, the Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines and you will find that on the evidence-based mechanical home ventilation guidelines, it says that only critical care nurses with a minimum of two years critical care nursing experience can safely look after ventilated and tracheostomy clients in the community, that includes tracheostomy clients without ventilation, that includes ventilated clients without a tracheostomy.

So, when funding bodies such as the NDIS or other funding bodies are trying to cut corners because they don’t understand the clinical complexities and they don’t look at what’s evidence-based, they just look at the bottom line in terms of dollars, that’s when deaths like this occur.

And who is responsible? Who is accountable for these deaths? The NDIS as we know has been busy trying to sweep under the carpet some deaths from 2020 still, not being accountable for not funding the critical care nurses. Once again, at least 7 or 8 patients have gotten in the last few years and most of them were actually kids because evidence-based services were not provided.

Now, how can you send a support worker on to basically an intensive care patient? How can you do that? Why are we not having support workers in intensive care? Are we dealing with ventilated clients in the community as second-class citizens?

So, we will not stop in fighting for evidence-based scam. We will not stop fighting for what is right for patients and their families. We will not stop making sure that long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomy get evidence-based and best care and treatment.

Everything else in my mind is a crime and people should be held accountable for it. It’s not even the individuals that were on the scene, it’s the individuals that are approving inadequate funding. It’s the individuals including registered nurses that think they can train a support worker on intensive care work. But it’s also an issue with NDIS accreditation that some accreditation bodies let support worker agencies get away with looking after ventilated clients. That is highly inappropriate.

In 2024, Intensive Care at Home is the only service provider in Australia in 2024 that has actually third party and NDIS accreditation for Intensive Care at Home nursing and that includes ventilation and tracheostomy.

We are employing hundreds of years of intensive care nursing experience combined that is unmatched of in 2024. No other service provider in Australia brings a higher level of skills into the community than Intensive Care at Home. I encourage you to look up our accreditation status on intensivecareathome.com.

So, I hope that helps and please leave your comments below and contact us if you know of any ventilated clients in the community or maybe you’re in a situation yourself where you don’t have enough funding or you think you don’t have enough funding, we can help you with the funding. Our clients all have 24-hour intensive care nurses and that’s partly because we are doing the advocacy with our clients, and we know what to advocate for.

How can a support worker agency advocate for a patient that would otherwise be in intensive care? Where would they have the knowledge from?

I’ve worked in critical care nursing for nearly 25 years in three different countries. I’ve been involved with Intensive Care at Home since the early 2000s when we first set it up in Germany. We’ve been running it here since 2012 and yet there are still shady, shady providers out there who think they can send support workers for ICU patients.

That’s like flying the airplane with a cabin crew instead of the pilot. Would you go on to an airplane and you knew the pilot was absent and the cabin crew would be flying the plane? You wouldn’t and it’s the same with ventilated clients in the community.

So, please share this video. Please spread the word and make sure that in our niche market, quality services will prevail and not providers who cut corners and basically kill people.

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

We are the only provider in Australia in 2024 that has achieved third-party accreditation for Intensive Care at Home nursing. No other provider has created this much intellectual property for Intensive Care at Home nursing than Intensive Care at Home. We are, therefore, employing hundreds of years of intensive care nursing experience in the community combined. Once again, no other provider brings that level of expertise in the community than we do.

Now, we’re also providing Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS Support Coordination. Our NDIS Support Coordinator, Amanda Riches in Victoria, as well as Rosie Hammer in New South Wales, have a wealth of knowledge and their team and I’ll put a link towards a video where I did an interview with Amanda Riches a while ago. We’re also providing TAC case management.

If you’re at home already and you realize that you’re on a ventilator, tracheostomy, BIPAP, CPAP, Home TPN, whatever the case may be, and you realize that your current setup is not working, you’re going back to ICU all the time, you do know that when you have support workers or even general RNs without intensive care nursing experience, that your life is at risk because people cannot look after ventilator and tracheostomy safely unless they worked in critical care nursing for a minimum of two years.

If you’re an NDIS Support Coordinator watching this and you’re looking for nursing care for your participants, please reach out to us as well or if you’re looking for funding for more nursing care for your participants and you don’t know how to go about it and what evidence to provide, I also encourage you to reach out to us. We can help you with the advocacy and we also provide NDIS specialist nursing assessments done by critical care nurses and legal nurse consultants.

If you are a critical care nurse and you’re looking for a career change, we’re 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 and in Geelong. 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 to hear from you.

I have a disclaimer though because we are offering a tailor-made solution for our clients, which includes regular staff, our clients will have the same staff coming over and over again because they are so vulnerable and so special. It’s all about building those critical relationships with our clients and with our team members and having regular and stable teams.

That means if you are looking for agency work where you can come and go, this may not be the right fit for you on a long-term basis because our clients want the same staff over and over again. So, it’s all about building the critical relationships with our clients and we want to build relationships with you as well, of course, so that it remains a win-win situation.

If you are an intensive care specialist or an ED specialist, we also want to hear from you. We are currently expanding our medical team as well. We can also help you eliminate your bed blocks in ICU and ED for your long-term patients or for your regular readmitting patients. We’re here to help you to take the pressure off your ICUs 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. We can help you.

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

Once again, contact us at intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or simply send us an email to [email protected].

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

I also do a weekly YouTube live where I answer your questions live on a show. You will get notification for the YouTube live if you are a subscriber to my YouTube channel or if you are 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.