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If you want to know how and where Intensive Care at Home can operate in regional and remote areas in Australia, stay tuned. I’ve got news for you.
My name is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com and I would break it down for you today.
So, with Intensive Care at Home, we’re currently operating all around Australia in all major capital cities, as well as in all regional and rural areas. Some families ask us, or some clients ask us, and even some nurses and doctors ask us, “How do you work in remote areas?” Let me explain that for you today, because it is a very relevant question.
Something we also realized early on when we first started in 2012, 2013, we actually realized there’s a high demand in remote and regional areas because there’s fewer resources and people are still sick, needing Intensive Care at Home.
So, let us talk about a few remote sites that we’ve served over the years and how we managed to get staff there because in regional and remote areas, there are not many ICUs, if any, and there are not many critical care nurses. So, let me explain some remote sites that we’ve served over the years and are currently still serving.
So, the first remote site that we served with Intensive Care at Home, it was actually in the Warragul area in South Gippsland in Victoria. That expanded very quickly then into the Trafalgar area, Traralgon, and also Drouin area, which are remote sites about 1 hour and a half, 2 hours away from Melbourne. There are very few critical care nurses in the Warragul, Traralgon, South Gippsland area but we managed to serve a large number of clients and most of them 24-hour rosters in that area, mainly with critical care nurses coming from Melbourne.
How do we do that? Of course, we need to incentivize them with travel, with accommodation, with a couple of shifts in a row, so they can actually stay in the area, not commute just out there for one shift. Also, another way to make it appealing for our critical care nurses is to do 12-hour shifts in those areas. So, by the way, it is a beautiful area out there in Warragul, Drouin, Traralgon, Trafalgar, South Gippsland, Leongatha, beautiful area to work there, and we are still having critical care nurses in that area serving clients.
Other remote areas that we served over the years are Bendigo, and Bendigo is another one where we are currently sending our critical care nurses to and when you look at Bendigo or the Bendigo region, not many hospitals, not many critical care nurses, but still a high demand for Intensive Care at Home nursing to keep patients out of ICUs. Especially in Bendigo, there’s only one big ICU at Bendigo Health, and there’s a smaller ICU at St. John of God. So, it’s also critical that we keep our clients at home, so they don’t go back to ICU in Melbourne. Bendigo is about 2 hours away from Melbourne.
Once again, similar to the Warragul area, we are sending the mainly critical care nurses from Melbourne to Bendigo because there’s simply not enough critical care nurses in Bendigo. How do we do that? Once again, we’re trying to incentivize them as much as we can with travel time, accommodation, 12-hour shifts, and so that our clients can live their best lives at home.
Another regional area that we are serving and have been serving is Geelong. Only sort of a bit closer to Melbourne, but it’s still a good hour away. Once again, it’s a bit easier in Geelong to find local staff, because they have a couple of ICUs and there’s people, CCRNs living sort of in the Werribee area where it’s sort of halfway between Melbourne and Geelong, so that’s not too bad.
Other areas that we’ve served over the years is, for example, Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, which is about a 7-hour drive from Sydney and probably a 10-hour drive from Melbourne. Now, I can assure you, no critical care nurses in Wagga Wagga. We were advertising in Wagga Wagga, and we were getting absolutely nothing.
So, how did we manage to staff Wagga Wagga? Well, we managed to staff Wagga Wagga by providing a fly-in, fly out roster from Sydney and that was the easiest way to manage. Lo and behold, we had staff applying in no time when we first advertised for the jobs in Wagga Wagga and that was so far the most remote site we’ve served. We managed to get staff there from Sydney and from Canberra actually fly in, fly out or drive in, drive out depending on where people exactly lived, but we had a stable roster with a fly in, fly out team, an amazing team.
So, another remote site we are serving at the moment is Albury, Wodonga. Once again, if you look at Albury, Wodonga, has one ICU in Albury, Wodonga, and there’s not much around there. There’s another ICU in Wangaratta and on the Victorian side, but that’s about it. That’s a good half an hour away, and they’re not big ICUs. How do we find staff there? Once again, we do have some local staff, but we also have filled shifts with either Melbourne or Sydney-based staff.
But the takeaway message here really is that remote sites are not an obstacle. So, if you are living in a remote site and you need Intensive Care at Home, I encourage you to reach out to us.
Remote sites are more expensive to serve, of course. I would be lying if I was saying it would be the same cost, but that’s when we negotiate with the funding bodies about the rate, so you don’t really need to worry about that. We can take care of all of that.
Talking about remote sites, I also want to quickly talk about remote sites in Queensland because, for example, there’s a dynamic at play in Queensland, especially at the Children’s Hospital, from what I understand, long-term ventilated kids in particular, they apparently need to live within a 40 kilometer radius of the Children’s Hospital in Brisbane, and otherwise, they can’t be looked after. That is a whole lot of nonsense because with Intensive Care at Home, we’ve looked after kids in remote sites. We could do the same in Queensland.
So, once again, a remote site will not stop us from sending staff. We have amazing staff, we have amazing teams that are prepared to go the extra mile, and that are prepared to travel because they understand our client’s needs.
So, I hope that helps you understand how we operate in remote sites, and there’s really nothing stopping you from contacting us at intensivecareathome.com.
If you are living remotely and you need Intensive Care at Home, or you might be stuck in a metropolitan hospital, in a metropolitan ICU, and you’re looking for remote Intensive Care at Home, I only encourage you to reach out to us so that we can make things happen for you. No remote site or regional site can stop us from sending you our critical care nurses.
Now, with Intensive Care at Home, we’re currently operating all around Australia and we’re sending our critical care nurses into the home, 24 hours a day. Therefore, we are providing a genuine alternative to a long-term stay in intensive care for ventilation and tracheostomy, adults and children, Home BIPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure), Home CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure), ventilation without tracheostomy, tracheostomy without ventilation, Home TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition), home IV potassium infusions, home IV magnesium infusions. We’re also providing ventilation weaning at home. We’re also providing PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line management, central line management, Hickman’s line management, as well as port-a-cath management. We’re also providing nasogastric tube management and PEG (Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy) tube management at home. We’re also providing palliative care at home.
We’re also sending our critical care nurses into the home for emergency department bypass services. We have done so successfully as part of the Western Sydney Local Area Health District, their in-touch program, saving approximately $2,000 per patient that we keep at home, instead of going to the emergency department.
We’re therefore also in a position to cut the cost of an intensive care bed by around 50%. The intensive care bed costs around $5,000 to $6,000 per bed day. Our service costs between $2,500 to $3,000 per bed day, and we’re freeing up the most sought-after bed in the hospital, which is the ICU bed. Most importantly, we’re improving the quality of life for patients and their families, so it’s a win-win situation for all stakeholders.
With Intensive Care at Home, we’re currently operating all around Australia in all major capital cities, as well as in all regional and rural areas. We are an NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) approved service provider all around Australia, TAC (Transport Accident Commission) and WorkSafe in Victoria, iCare in New South Wales, NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme in Queensland), as well as the Department of Veteran Affairs all around Australia. Our clients and 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 that has achieved third-party accreditation for Intensive Care at Home nursing in 2025. We have been achieving this high level of accreditation since 2012. No other provider has achieved this high level of accreditation in the community in Australia and has created more intellectual property for Intensive Care at Home nursing than we have. That puts us in a position to employ hundreds of years of critical care nursing experience combined in the community. No other service provider in 2025 employs a higher skill level in the community than we do, which enables us to look after the highest acuity adults and children in the community in Australia safely.
If you’re at home already, and you’re watching this, and you realize that you don’t have the right level of support or you are stuck in an ICU and you’re watching this or you have a family member stuck in ICU, I’ll give you a very tangible example today. One of our first clients over 10 years ago was a client who was at home on a ventilator with a tracheostomy with a support worker model 24/7. Of course, support workers cannot look after a client at home on a ventilator with a tracheostomy. That is like flying the airplane with a cabin crew instead of the pilot, because anyone on a ventilator with a tracheostomy is a very high risk of medical emergencies or dying if they don’t have critical care nurses at home looking after them 24/7 as is evidence-based and is documented in the Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines that you can find on our website at intensivecareathome.com.
So eventually this client found out about us. We were proving our concept Intensive Care at Home with his client very quickly. When we worked with the client, we sent him intensive care nurses, 24 hours a day, and he never ever went back to ICU ever again, and we were proving our concept there very fast.
We can do the same for you if you’re not safe at home, which includes the advocacy for funding that goes along with it. We have always successfully advocated for our clients, otherwise we would not be in business.
This is also why we are providing Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS Support Coordination. We have a team of NDIS Support Coordinators, and they have a wealth of knowledge. I’ve done an interview with Amanda Riches, one of our NDIS Support Coordinators, and we’ll put a link to an interview with Amanda in the written version of this blog below the video. We’re also providing TAC case management, WorkSafe case management in Victoria with Lucy McCotter.
If you’re an NDIS Support Coordinator or a case manager from another organization 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 nursing care for your participants and you don’t know how to go about it and what evidence to provide, I encourage you to reach out to us as well. We can help you with the right level of funding and with the right level of advocacy. We’re also providing NDIS specialist nursing assessments done by critical care nurses with the legal nurse consulting background.
If you are a critical care nurse and you’re looking for a career change, and you want to join a very progressive, dynamic, high performing team of critical care nurses in the community, we’re employing hundreds of years of critical care nursing experience combined, and you can join our high performing team. If you’re looking for a career change, we are currently hiring for jobs for critical care nurses in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, in Albury, Wodonga, in Bendigo, in Geelong, and in Warragul in Victoria. If you have worked in critical care nursing for a minimum of 2 years pediatric ICU, ED and you have already completed the 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 do want the same staff coming over and over again, because our clients are so vulnerable and so special, and that’s why we need regular staff. So, if you’re looking for agency work where you can come and go, this will not be the right fit for you. We are looking for consistency and our clients are looking for consistency. So please, only apply with us if you can give us regular and consistent availability for shifts and you’re really keen on building relationships with us and with our clients.
If you’re an intensive care specialist or an ED specialist, we also want to hear from you. We’re currently expanding our medical team as well. We can also help you eliminate your bed blocks in your ICU and ED for your long-term patients or for your regularly readmitting patients with our critical care nursing team at home. We’re here to help you take the pressure off your ICU and ED beds. In most cases, you won’t even pay for it. Even if you do pay for it, it’s much more cost-effective than what you’re paying in ICU and ED for.
If you’re a hospital executive watching this and you have bed blocks in your ICU, ED, respiratory wards, please reach out to us as well. We can help you there fast.
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 with one-on-one consulting.
Once again, our website is intensivecareathome.com Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or simply 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.