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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,

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED LIVE! FOR INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME

You can check out last week’s blog by clicking on the link below this video:

https://intensivecareathome.com/your-questions-answered-live-for-intensive-care-at-home/ 

In today’s blog post, I want to answer a question from one of our clients and the question today is 

Checklist for Intensive Care at Home When Transitioning Clients Home from ICU/PICU

Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from Intensive Care at Home, where we provide tailor-made solutions for long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies and where we also provide tailor-made solutions for BIPAP and CPAP dependent adults and children on non-invasive ventilation, as well as home TPN  and otherwise medically complex patients, and we provide a genuine alternative to a long-term stay in intensive care.

So today, I want to talk about a client that is inquiring about our service and asking, “What’s our checklist when we onboard clients to go home from intensive care?” And of course, we have a checklist when we onboard clients so they can go home from intensive care. And I’ll quickly go through the checklist so that you have an idea how we approach it.

Obviously, there’s a list of equipment that we need to go through, especially when it comes to mechanical ventilation. There are usually two ventilators needed. There are two suction units needed. There are spare tracheostomies needed, assuming a client of ours is ventilated with a tracheostomy. If they are non-invasively ventilated like BIPAP or CPAP, they don’t need spare tracheostomy equipment, but they still need two ventilators. They also often need the suction machine. Definitely, clients with tracheostomy and ventilation need a suction machine. Most clients with BIPAP and CPAP that are under our care need suction machines as well.

Obviously, they need resuscitation bags. If they’re having a tracheostomy, they need two different sizes. If they’re, for example, having a size 8 tracheostomy, they need also a size 7 tracheostomy as backup. They need a resuscitation bag with a PEEP valve and a resuscitation mask. They need oxygen cylinders or an oxygen concentrator, oxygen tubing, nebulizer set humidifiers.

If they’re having a PEG (percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy) tube or a nasogastric tube, they need a feeding pump, enteral feeding giving sets. They need dressings for the tracheostomy. They need dressings for the PEG tube. Gloves, of course. Sometimes sterile gloves, especially when it comes to tracheostomy dressing changes. Goggles for the staff. Normal saline ampoules, chlorhexidine, as well as a tablet crusher most of the time with a bladder syringe as well.

A urine bag if clients have a suprapubic catheter or sometimes even an indwelling catheter. And the list goes on such as stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, monitor, of course, to monitor heart rate and oxygen saturation. Often a special care bed, a hoist lifting machine is needed. Ideally a ceiling hoist, especially when it comes to long-term patients. Tracheal dilator and so forth.

Now, also comes down to that a 24-hour nursing roster with intensive care nurses is in place. A care and activity plan, clinical observation charts, ventilation charts, standard shift check charts, and all of our clinical documentation needs to be in place as well before we can safely take a patient home from intensive care. But it’s absolutely doable. We have done it many times.

And if you are in a situation where your loved one is stuck in an intensive care bed, long term with ventilation or tracheostomy or any of the other situations that I’ve just mentioned, if they’re on BIPAP or CPAP and they can’t leave intensive care, or sometimes patients are stuck on a respiratory ward or floor as well and they can’t live there. Or sometimes patients are stuck on a hospital floor with a tracheostomy, and they can’t go home because no one in the community can look after them. Then, you should contact us as well.

We are operating in all major capital cities in Australia, and we are NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) accredited as well as ISO 9001:2015. We are accredited for Intensive Care at Home, and I believe as of 2023, we are the only organization in Australia that has the third-party accreditation for Intensive Care at Home. So, we are really specialized on mechanical ventilation, tracheostomy care at home, and also home TPN. For example, we can manage central lines, PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) lines, Hickman’s lines at home for TPN or for IV fluids, including IV antibiotics.

So, that’s it for today.

If you have a loved one in intensive care or in the hospital that can’t go home because of lack of specialist care in the community, whether that’s ventilation, tracheostomy, TPN (total parenteral nutrition), anything that requires an intensive care nurse at home in the community, please contact us at intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or simply email us to [email protected]. That is again, [email protected].

Also, have a look at our membership for families in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org. There, we have built a membership area for families in intensive care and where you have access to me, and my team and we answer all questions, intensive care and Intensive Care at Home related.

Also, if you need a medical record review or a nursing assessment, we can help you with that as well. Especially with the NDIS, we’re providing nursing assessments and review of medical records for intensive care patients as well. Please contact us as well. We also can review medical records in real time while your loved one is in intensive care, or we can review them after intensive care as well.

Thanks for watching this video.

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

Thanks for watching.

This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com and I’ll talk to you in a few days.

 

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.