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Can INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME Keep a Long-Term Ventilated Patient Regularly Coming into ICU from Home?

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 at home, 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 and we have done so successfully in the past for the Western Sydney Local Area Health District for their in-touch program.

Now, in today’s video, I have a question actually that comes from an intensive care nurse who says,

“Hi Patrik,

I’m an intensive care nurse in Sydney, Australia. We know of a patient at home that is ventilated with a tracheostomy because the patient keeps bouncing back into ICU all the time and that is why we have looked up your company, Intensive Care at Home. We need someone that can manage his ventilator, change his tracheostomy tube at home, and keep him at home predictably because clearly, he doesn’t want to come to our ICU and we don’t want him in our ICU because he’s clearly blocking a bed and he doesn’t want to be there.

We believe he’s so much better off at home, but it also shows that he doesn’t have the right support at home. Can you employ intensive care nurses at home to keep this man home predictably? Thank you so much.“

This is from Amanda. Thank you so much, Amanda, for writing in and yes, absolutely. This is bread and butter for us.

So, let me dig out a story from way back when, when I first started Intensive Care at Home in 2012. We were trying to open doors and then eventually I came across a client who was exactly doing that. He was at home already with a ventilator and the tracheostomy and he was bouncing back into ICU all the time because he didn’t have the right support at home. His team which was a mixture of general registered nurses who are not ventilation and tracheostomy competent and support workers with all respect, I mean, support workers are untrained and all of a sudden, they’ve been asked to look after ventilated and tracheostomy patient, that is madness.

So, this patient or we call them clients, of course, went back to ICU all the time and as soon as we got in front of the client and we started working there, he never ever went back to ICU ever again because that is simply our model. Our model of care is Intensive Care at Home. We are replicating an ICU bed in the community. It’s a genuine alternative to a long-term stay in intensive care and our clients are at home predictably, that’s when we can do our best work.

Also, this is evidence-based. So, have a look on our website at intensivecareathome.com. There is a section called the Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines. On that section, you will see that there’s enough research and evidence to showcase that only critical care nurses with a minimum of two years critical care nursing experience can safely look after ventilated and tracheostomy patients at home, that includes ventilation and tracheostomy, that includes tracheostomy without ventilation, and it also includes noninvasive ventilation such as BIPAP or CPAP.

The same in hospital, you wouldn’t have a patient with a tracheostomy or on BIPAP or on CPAP on a hospital ward without an ICU nurse, you wouldn’t. Whilst it happens every now and then on some wards, they would still have a 1 to 1 special with an ICU nurse. So, it’s not any different in a home care.

With Intensive Care at Home, once again, the first services of Intensive Care at Home came sort of in the late 1990s, early 2000s in Germany. The research is from Germany, and I have worked in three different countries in intensive care including in Germany. I’ve worked in Germany, the U.K., and Australia. The issues in ICU are the same, the patients are the same.

So, in order to discharge patients safely from ICU, you need critical care nurses, 24 hours a day, in a home care environment. It’s very simple, very straightforward and it’s also way more cost-effective than staffing an ICU bed. ICU bed costs $5000 to $6000 per bed day, Intensive Care at Home is approximately 50% of that. So once again, it is an absolute win-win situation and we have case studies, Amanda, that we can help your ICU to achieve what we are achieving for all of our other clients, which is keeping them home predictably, and keeping your ICU beds empty and you won’t even pay for it.  It’s a win-win situation. You have an empty bed, patients and families improve their quality of life, once again, win-win situation.

Now, with Intensive Care at Home, we are currently operating all around Australia and all major capital cities and in all regional and rural areas. We are a NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) accredited Intensive Care at Home nursing service. We are a TAC (Transport Accident Commission) and WorkSafe approved nursing service in Victoria, iCare in New South Wales and NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme) in Queensland. We’re 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.

Intensive Care at Home, in 2024, is the only service provider in Australia that is accredited for Intensive Care at Home nursing. 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’re employing hundreds of years of intensive care nursing experience combined in the community. I believe that is unmatched in 2024 in Australia. Most of our staff have a postgraduate critical care qualification. Approximately 70 to 80% of our staff have completed a postgraduate critical care qualification. Once again, I argue that it is unmatched in the community and that enables us to look after the highest acuity clients in the community in Australia.

We’re also providing Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS Support Coordination which is critical for most NDIS participants to obtain the right level of funding and the right level of support they need.

If you’re at home already with a ventilator, with a tracheostomy, or with a tracheostomy without a ventilator, or with ventilation BIPAP or CPAP without a tracheostomy, or you or your family member is at home already and you don’t have enough support, you’re struggling staying at home predictably and you think you have enough funding, you don’t have the right team, please reach out to us at intensivecareathome.com. We have the expertise in building the right teams, obtaining the right funding, that’s all part of our skill sets otherwise we would not be in business.

So, I strongly encourage you to reach out to us as well because we keep our clients at home predictably so that you don’t go back to hospital or to ICU, or you can go home, of course, if you are in ICU. Our success rate in keeping patients at home and our clients at home is very, very high.

If you’re an 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 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’re currently offering jobs to critical care nurses in the home in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, in Albury, Wodonga, and Bendigo in Victoria, as well as in Warragul and Leongatha 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.

Please keep in mind, we are offering a tailor-made solution for our clients, which includes regular staff. Our clients want to have the same staff coming to their home over and over again because they are very vulnerable and it’s all about building those critical relationships, 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’re interested in a long-term engagement with us and a long-term engagement with our highly valued clients and their families and building those critical relationships, then this is a win-win situation for everyone.

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

If you have bed blocks in your ICU and you’re an ED or ICU consultant, we can help you eliminate some of your bed blocks for long-term patients or for patients that come in frequently. We can help you take the pressure off your ICU and ED bed blocks 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 help you with our critical care nurses taking the pressure off your bed blocks.

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, please reach out.

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 families with Intensive Care at Home and for families in intensive care. Click the like button, click the notification bell, comment below what you want to see next, what questions and insights you have from this video, and share the video with your friends and families.

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 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.