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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), 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’re also sending our critical care nurses into the home for emergency department bypass services, and we have done so as part of a program at the Western Sydney Local Area Health District, their in-touch program, saving approximately $2,000 per patient that we could keep at home instead of going to ED.
Now, today, I actually want to talk about a conference that I went to last week, I actually went to the Sleep DownUnder conference, which is basically the Australian sleep apnea and respiratory conference.
Now, one might wonder, what does Intensive Care at Home doing at the sleep apnea conference? Well, the bottom line is that there’s a lot of patients with sleep apnea that have complex disability and complex medical conditions, which is obviously a patient population that we can help, and that’s why it was a very good conference with a lot of insights, but also with a lot of good networking.
On Friday, there was a breakfast session sponsored by ResMed and done by the Victorian Respiratory Support Service, the VRSS, which is the statewide program caring for over 1,400 patients on home ventilation based out of the Austin Hospital in Melbourne.
In the session, Dr. Anna Ridgers, Sleep and Respiratory Physician presented a practical guide to initiating and managing long-term ventilation. Topics include the device selection optimizing NIV therapy with case studies, remote telemonitoring for long-term patient care and transitioning from pediatric to adult ventilation was a very good presentation.
One of the questions that I had at the end of the presentation, once Dr. Ridgers went through what type of noninvasively ventilated patients the VRSS is supplying equipment to, especially when it comes to MND (Motor Neuron Disease) patients, whether some of them would have a tracheostomy?
The answer was that not many of them can have a tracheostomy because of lack of services in the community. I say that is not accurate and that is not true because we have looked after a number of MND (Motor Neuron Disease) clients at home with a tracheostomy. We are still looking after MND clients at home in the community with the tracheostomy.
It was sort of brushed off saying, “Well, it’s too difficult to get any support for them.” Well, again, that is not accurate with Intensive Care at Home. It is definitely possible to look after MND patients with the tracheostomy at home with 24-hour nursing care that is NDIS-funded.
There were also comments made that the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) takes a long time to respond and isn’t funding what clients are asking for and once again, that is not accurate. We would not be in business and our clients would not be at home safely with MND and tracheostomy and ventilation if the NDIS wasn’t funding 24-hour nursing care. So, it’s all a matter of what evidence is provided, what advocacy is being done. It all comes down to the right level of advocacy.
I’m also aware that even MND Victoria is trying to dissuade patients from having a tracheostomy saying that the NDIS won’t be funding nursing and so forth. Once again, that is not accurate, and I urge MND Victoria to do the advocacy properly because they’re not doing it properly from what we’ve seen in recent months. Basically, supporting the NDIS with not providing evidence-based care to NDIS participants with MND and their families, and that is not good enough.
Now, case in point, some of you might know that I have worked in critical care nursing for 25 years in three different countries where I worked as a nurse manager in ICU for over 5 years. I’ve been involved with Intensive Care at Home as early as 2001 in Germany where we were the first ones in Germany, setting up Intensive Care at Home. We were looking after a number of MND clients in the community there and then with the tracheostomy patients were given choice and control there and then.
Then, by leaving intensive care with the tracheostomy and the ventilator and with 24 hours critical care nurses at home, the cost of an ICU bed was cut by 50%. That’s 50%. Furthermore, patients and their families could improve their quality of life and could live sometimes for many years.
Think about Stephen Hawking, the famous scientist that lived into his 70s with MND on a ventilator with a tracheostomy. That is what MND associations should propagate and not this limited mindset and saying, “Well, tracheostomy is no good. No one would look after you and so forth.”
Well, Stephen Hawking certainly lived for decades with this disease, and he could live because he had 24-hour nursing care, most likely with intensive care nurses because only they can safely look after ventilation and tracheostomy, and that is actually evidence-based.
If you look up the evidence-based Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines on our website, it says that only critical care registered nurses with a minimum of two years critical care nursing experience, ideally with the postgraduate certificate can safely look after ventilated and tracheostomy clients in the community. So, once again, that is evidence-based and the NDIS needs to provide evidence-based service, and so do other funding bodies. I mean, it’s not unique to the NDIS.
As we all know, many patients in the community have died because of a support worker model on ventilation with tracheostomy because they couldn’t manage medical emergencies, which is why once again, we are referring back to evidence-based nursing care, which is with intensive care nurses and critical care nurses, 24 hours a day, so that patients can stay at home, predictably and stay out of ICU.
More importantly, can stay alive and not like with support worker models where support workers simply could not manage medical emergency that led to patients’ death. A support worker model is not evidence-based, there is actually no evidence, with all respect, support workers might have worked in a supermarket the week before and now all of a sudden, they’re being asked to look after someone on a ventilator on life support with a tracheostomy.
The question is why are we not having support workers in ICU if we think that’s a safe model in the community where many people have died in recent years? So, I’m just putting that out there.
But thank you for Dr. Ridgers and for the Australian Sleep Association to put on this amazing conference last week. I’m sure we will be back there doing some more networking next year in Adelaide, but this is just some insights once again that tracheostomy is definitely possible and nursing care at home is possible as well.
Now, with Intensive Care at Home, we are currently operating all around Australia in all major capital cities as well as in regional and rural areas. We are an NDIS-approved service provider, all around the country, TAC (Transport Accident Commission) in Victoria, WorkSafe in Victoria, iCare in New South Wales, NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme in Queensland), DVA (Department of Veteran Affairs) all around the country. Our clients, we as a provider have also received funding through public hospitals, private health funds, as well as departments of health.
We are the only service 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 we have. We are, therefore, in a position to employ hundreds of years of intensive care and critical care nursing experience in the community combined. No other provider brings this level of expertise into the community than we do.
If you’re at home already and you’re watching this and you are on a ventilator, tracheostomy, BIPAP, CPAP, Home TPN, and whatever the case may be, and you realize that your current setup is not working, and it is even dangerous and that your current team is not having the skills and expertise you need to keep you at home predictably, and you feel unsafe where you’re going back to ICU all the time or you’re going back to hospital all the time, then you should reach out to us here at intensivecareathome.com before something serious happens.
Like I said, many patients in the community have died on ventilation tracheostomy because of support worker model and not of a critical care nurse model. Makes perfect sense. Once again, if a support worker model was safe, why do we not have support workers in an intensive care unit? We don’t even have general registered nurses in an intensive care unit. So, why would we all of a sudden use support workers?
So, and we have turned around many of our clients lives by keeping them out of hospital, predictably and out of ICU predictably with our critical care teams and we’ve improved their quality of life at home.
You should reach out to us here at intensivecareathome.com. Just call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send us an email to [email protected] so that you get the right level of care and the right level of funding.
This is also why we are providing Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS Support Coordination. Our NDIS Support Coordinator, Amanda Riches in Victoria has a wealth of knowledge, and I’ll put the link in the written version of this blog to an interview that I’ve done with Amanda a while ago. We’re also providing TAC case management and WorkSafe case management in Victoria.
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. 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 right advocacy. We also provide NDIS specialist nursing assessments done by critical care nurses with a legal nurse consulting background.
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, and Bendigo in Victoria, as well as in Warragul in Victoria, and in Geelong 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 nursing qualification. We will be delighted to hear from you.
I have a disclaimer 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’re 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’re looking for agency work where you can come and go, this is probably not the right fit for you on a long-term basis because our clients want regular and the same staff over and over again. So, it’s all about building those 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 with our critical care nurse team at home. We’re here to 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, respiratory wards, et cetera, please reach out to us as well. We can help you.
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, our website is intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send us an email to [email protected].
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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.