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Hi it’s Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME where we provide tailor made solutions for long-term ventilated Adults & Children with Tracheostomies and where we also provide tailor made solutions for hospitals and Intensive Care Units whilst providing quality services for long-term ventilated patients and medically complex patients at home, including home TPN.
In last week’s blog, I talked about,
MY HUSBAND HAS A TRACHEOSTOMY, CAN HE BE DECANNULATED?
You can check out last week’s blog by clicking on the link below this video:
https://intensivecareathome.com/my-husband-has-a-tracheostomy-can-he-be-decannulated/
In today’s blog post, I want to answer a question from one of our clients and the question today is
Can You Die whilst on BIPAP?
Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com where we provide tailor-made solutions for long-term ventilated adults and children, with and without tracheostomies, and where we also provide tailor-made solutions for hospitals and intensive care units whilst providing quality services and quality of life for clients and their families.
So, today’s question is about a question we get quite frequently, and the question is, “Can you die while on BIPAP (bilevel positive airway pressure)?” Now, the short answer to this is, yes, you can. But the other part of that answer is yes, BIPAP can also help you survive. So, let me break this down for you.
For example, if someone goes into intensive care with pneumonia, needs some BIPAP instead of being intubated and the pneumonia can be cleared with BIPAP, that’s a good thing and it’ll help you survive. On the other hand, there are also patients in ICU, but also in home care that are on BIPAP for palliative care situation. So, let me explain.
We have a number of clients at home on BIPAP that don’t have a tracheostomy. And we’ve used BIPAP at home for some palliative care situation, for example, for clients with lung cancer. And they wanted to spend their last few months at home instead of in intensive care. Otherwise, they would’ve spent time in intensive care on BIPAP. Instead, we were able to take them home from intensive care and let them approach their end of life at home.
As a side product, we saved hundreds of thousands of dollars for taxpayers because we save half of the cost of an intensive care bed by providing Intensive Care at Home. But it’s not the monetary aspect that is important here. It’s way more important that clients and their families can be in an environment where they want to be, and they’re not treated as a number like they are in ICU, but they’re treated holistically and as a whole person with their family in mind at home while they are on BIPAP, for example.
So, other clients we have at home, they’ve been living at home on BIPAP for years because that’s part of their condition, they need the BIPAP to stay alive and we help them doing that by providing 24-hour intensive home care nursing as per the mechanical home ventilation guidelines that are published on our website that are evidence-based. The mechanical home ventilation guidelines clearly evidence that only intensive care nurses with a minimum of two years ICU experience can provide services at home to patients on long-term ventilation, again, with or without a tracheostomy. So, our services are evidence-based. So, that’s the bottom line.
But can you die on BIPAP? The answer is yes, but in other situations it can save lives like we do, for example, with Intensive Care at Home and we can prolong life at home if that’s the wish of a client and a family, of course. So, that hopefully answers your question.
If you have a loved one in intensive care that is long-term ventilated with a tracheostomy or without a tracheostomy on BIPAP, for example, or is otherwise medically complex and you’re stuck in intensive care with your loved one, you should contact us because we can help you taking your loved one home.
We are currently operating in all major metropolitan areas in Australia, and you should contact us. Contact us at intensivecareathome.com and call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or simply email us at [email protected].
Also, have a look at our membership for families in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org. There, you have access to me and my team, and we answer all questions, intensive care and Intensive Care at Home related, 24 hours a day.
If you need a medical record review, either for your loved one in intensive care or even after intensive care, please contact us as well. We can help you with that.
Subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care and Intensive Care at Home, like the video, share the video with your friends and families, click the notification bell, and comment below your questions and insights or what you think, and I’ll talk to you soon.
Thanks for watching.
This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com and I’ll talk to you in a few days.
Take care.
Now, if you have a loved one in intensive care and you want to go home with our service intensive care at home and if you want to find out how to get funding for our service and how it all works, please contact us on one of the numbers on the top of our website, or send me an email to [email protected]. That’s Patrik, just with a K at the end.
Please also have a look at our case studies because there we highlight more about what we can do for clients, how clients can live at home with ventilation and tracheostomies and you can look at our case studies as well at our service section.
Intensive care at home Case studies
And if you are at home already and you need support for your critically ill loved one at home, and you have insufficient support or insufficient funding, please contact us as well. We can help you with all of that.
And if you are an intensive care nurse or a pediatric intensive care nurse with a minimum of two years, ICU or pediatric ICU experience, and you ideally have a critical care certificate, please contact us as well. Check out our career section on our website. We are currently hiring ICU and pediatric ICU nurses for clients in the Melbourne metropolitan area, Northern suburbs, Sunbury, Bendigo, Mornington Peninsula, Bittern, Patterson Lakes, Frankston area, South Gippsland, Drouin, Warragul, Trida, Trafalgar and Moe as well as Wollongong in New South Wales.
www.intensivecareathome.com/careers
So we are also an NDIS, TAC (Victoria) and DVA (Department of Veteran affairs) approved community service provider in Australia. Also have a look at our range of full-service provisions.
Thank you for watching this video and thank you for tuning into this week’s blog.
This is Patrik from Intensive Care at Home, and I’ll see you again next week in another update.