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If you want to know how much life support for someone on a ventilator with a tracheostomy costs per day, stay tuned. I’ve got news for you.

My name is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com, and this is a question we get quite frequently, how much does life support costs per day for someone on the ventilator with a tracheostomy? Let’s break this down for you today.

So, when patients are in intensive care, on a ventilator with a breathing tube or with a tracheostomy, on average, an intensive care bed costs around $5,000 to $6,000 per bed day, goes even higher if patients are on ECMO (Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) in ICU or on LVAD (Left ventricular assist device), RVAD (Right ventricular assist device), and they’re ventilated, have a tracheostomy and a breathing tube. Some figures show around roughly $10,000 per bed day if people are on ECMO, but for the average patient in ICU, the cost of an intensive care bed is around $5,000 to $6,000 per bed day.

Now, for our clients with Intensive Care at Home that would be in hospital if it wasn’t for our service, the cost would be enormous, between, if you factor that for over a year, an annual cost would be around, $5,000 times 350 days, that’s conservative, would be $1.7 million to $2 million roughly, probably up to $2.3 million per year. If you think about Intensive Care at Home, that costs around 50% of that. So, it is therefore common sense that long-term patients in intensive care that are long-term ventilated with the tracheostomy need to be looked after at home.

It’s not only common sense, it is also what patients and families want. Clearly, otherwise, we wouldn’t be in business, but it’s also what hospitals and intensive care units want, because they need their beds, and they need their staff. So again, we are talking about a common sense solution here. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.

Patients and families want to be at home. Hospitals and ICUs need their beds and staff and equipment, and funding bodies want to save money, need to save money. So, it is a common sense solution to use Intensive Care at Home to cut the cost of the most expensive and also the most sought-after bed in a hospital by 50%. It’s common sense.

Show me any other products in healthcare that can be reduced by 50% by changing the environment or by innovation in the current environment. I think we have a really good and cost-effective solution here that people want. Once again, it is a win-win situation for everyone.

The only other thing that I would like to mention in this video, we are also providing an emergency department bypass services for our clients and there, we are saving around $2,000 per admission. So, we’re sending basically critical care nurses into the home for emergency department bypass services. We’re saving $2,000 to the healthcare system by providing the ED bypass service at home instead of patients going to ED. Once again, with an ED bypass service, it also makes a lot of sense to save that money, save the inconvenience for patients and their families to spend time in an ED in an emergency department.

Also, a big shout out here to our friends at Mobile Radiology in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Adelaide that help us with home X-rays. Once again, that’s a common sense solution.

So, with Intensive Care at Home, we are currently sending our critical care nurses into the home, 24 hours a day, and therefore, we are providing a genuine alternative to a long-term stay in intensive care for ventilation, tracheostomy, 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, and home IV magnesium infusions. We’re also providing ventilation weaning at home. We’re also providing central line management, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) 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, and we’re also providing palliative care at home.

Like I mentioned, 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.

Like I mentioned in the topic of today’s video, we are in a position to cut the cost of an intensive care bed by around 50%. An 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 though, 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 (DVA) 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 level of accreditation since 2012. No other provider in Australia has achieved this high level of accreditation in the community. No other provider 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 the community 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, 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 looking after them 24/7, as is evidence-based and as is documented in the Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines that you can find on our website.

Eventually, this client found out about our service. We were proving our concept with this client very fast. When we worked with the client, we sent him intensive care nurses, 24 hours a day, at home. He never ever went back into 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’re 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 and 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, with the right level of advocacy. We’re also providing NDIS specialist nursing assessments done by critical care nurses with a legal nurse consulting background.

If you’re 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. 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 a postgraduate critical care nursing qualification, we will be delighted hearing 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 they are so vulnerable and so special, that’s why we need regular staff. So, if you’re looking for agency work, where you can come and go, this won’t be the right fit for you. We’re 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 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, ED beds, and 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 and one consulting and private nursing staff.

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].

If you like my videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families with Intensive Care at Home and intensive care, click the like button, click the notification bell, share this video with your friends and families, and leave your comments below, what you want to see next, what you think about today’s topic, and what insights you have from today’s video.

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.