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Hi it’s Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVECAREATHOME.COM.AU where we help long-term ventilated Adults& Children with Tracheostomy to improve their Quality of life and where we also help hospitals and Intensive Care Units to save money and resources, whilst providing Quality Care!
In last week’s blog I wrote about “Why Home Care for long-term ventilated Adults& Children with Tracheostomy is a basic human right!”. You can check out the blog by clicking on this link here.
In this week’s blog I want to talk about “How to better manage limited resources in Intensive Care”.
We all know that resources are limited in many areas in life. Let alone in healthcare. You hear about it all day long.
And then there’s Intensive Care which we’re all familiar with. We tend to deal with a limited number of beds, limited number of staff and limited amount of funding coming into this high acuity area within a Hospital.
On the other end of the spectrum we seem to have a limitless and increasing number of people wanting to have or needing an Intensive Care bed, especially with our demographics trending towards an ageing population.
The formula often doesn’t add up with the result that some Patients in need of an Intensive Care bed often end up on surgical waiting lists for many weeks and many months or with the result that long-term ventilated Adults and Children with Tracheostomy stay in Intensive Care for longer than necessary.
However, in order to have more, better and faster access to Intensive Care beds, whilst also looking at how we can improve Patient care for long-term mechanically ventilated Adults& Children with Tracheostomy and focus on their and their Families needs, we can create a win-win situation by freeing up expensive Intensive Care beds that can be used for more acutely unwell Patients!
Opening up possibilities and opportunities
Patient care for long-term ventilated Adults& Children with Tracheostomy can be continued in their Home and that is far more Family and Patient friendly than an Intensive Care Unit and tends to be focused on possibilities and opportunities! For example, some ventilated Children, despite their perceived limitations would be able to go back to school, kindergarten etc… I have also worked with some ventilated Adults that we managed to get back to work on a part time basis. Those possibilities and opportunities are available because of the right support structures in a home care environment! If it wasn’t for Home Care, the alternative would be a long-term stay in Intensive Care or even death.
The situations where Home Care for long-term ventilated Adults& Children will be a genuine alternative to a long-term stay in Intensive Care can be manyfold, however in most instances would fall into the category of
- long term weaning situations
- end of life situations
- Where a Patient may require ventilation for the rest of their life
INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME services have been massively successful in Germany for 15 years
Once again, the concept of Home ventilation as a genuine alternative to a long-term stay in Intensive Care has been successfully implemented for the last 15 years in many European countries, with the health industry in Germany as the main driver of this holistic care model.
Intensive Care Units love it, because they know that this win-win situation creates opportunities and possibilities for all stakeholders involved in the process. Home ventilation and INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME services therefore provide
- The opportunity to free up expensive and scarce Intensive Care beds
- Cost savings for health services
- Holistic care for ventilated Patients and their Families in their own home
What are your thoughts on how Intensive Care Units can better manage their limited resources? What do you think is the best solution and where can you see bottlenecks? Leave your comments on the blog here.
Please also note that INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME has been selected as a preferred provider for Queensland Health Services as part of the recent “Hospital in the Home” tender.
If you want to discuss your needs for your Intensive Care Unit, feel free to give me a call on 041 094 2230.
This is Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVECAREATHOME.COM.AU and I’ll see you again in another update next week.