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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 by improving their Quality of life and where we also provide tailor made solutions to hospitals and Intensive Care Units to save money and resources, whilst providing Quality Care!
In the last blog I shared
You can check out last week’s episode by clicking on the link here.
In this week’s blog I want to share an article from India, where ICU at Home is also a growing area and this week’s blog is focusing on
HOW THE ICU CAME HOME!
The article below describes how ICU AT HOME or INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME services are delivering much needed services in India. It describes the benefits for Patients and their families, it describes that at a certain point in the trajectory of a critical illness Intensive Care is not the right place for a Patient to be and it highlights the massive cost savings!
The article also describes how infection risk is basically zero in a home care environment whereas in ICU the infection risk is huge and can in fact be a deadly risk!
It’s great to see that other countries are also embracing a holistic concept that has now been around for 20 years in Germany and 5 years in Australia!
Whilst the article doesn’t give too much detail on how the services are run in India, we can from our point of view only stress the fact that we provide services up to 24/7 with critical care trained nurses and always have a senior nurse and a doctor on call in order to escalate care or treatment in clinically required.
We also don’t agree with the last paragraph of the article that emergencies can’t be managed at home as we have proven more than once that we can. Please find our case studies here (188) as well as this article here so you can see how we have successfully dealt with emergencies in the past
Please find the article from the India times below
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/how-the-icu-came-home/articleshow/64431183.cms
From ventilators to doctors on call, intensive care services are now at your doorstep
On January 2, 77-year-old D C Gambhir slipped in his bathroom and lost consciousness. After spending two months in a Faridabad hospital, Gambhir now lies comatose in the guestroom of his home, which has been converted into a make-shift ICU. His medical bed is surrounded by a vacuum suction machine, an oxygen cylinder, a cardiac monitor and other life-saving equipment.
Although his condition has not improved his son ,Vikas, says that taking care of him at home, with services of Critical Care Unified, was easier and safer after his vital parameters stabilised.
“When he was in the ICU, he got really bad bed sores. ICU staff was not able to provide personalised care to every patient. And the problem is compounded if the patient is not able to communicate. If you keep a patient in the ICU beyond a certain point, then the fight is against hospital-acquired infections rather than the original problem,” says Vikas. “At home his infection levels are contained and I can be with him as much as I want. In the hospital I could meet him only for 15 minutes, twice a day. Mentally, I am at ease now.”
An ICU visit can be traumatic for patients as well as their attendants. Now, companies like Philips, Dabur and some startups are offering the option at home.
Philips Healthcare@home, India launched ICU@home service last year in Delhi-NCR and is currently looking after 10-25 patients, says Richa Singh, business leader, Philips. “With an ageing population, awareness and higher incidence of nuclear families, there is a huge demand for critical care at home,” says Singh. Dr Gaurav Thukral, COO, HealthCare at Home adds: “People are now realizing that it is possible to treat critical care patients at home with services at par with hospitals.”
Cost is one of the main reasons why people are opting for home ICU services. An ICU stay in a private hospital can cost anywhere between Rs 30,000 and Rs 50,000 per day. “At home the cost comes down to Rs 7,500 to Rs 12,500 per day,” says Rajiv Mathur, CEO of Critical Care Unified, a health startup that began operations in Delhi-NCR in December 2016. It has serviced to 630 patients so far and recently launched in Mumbai.
In the past five years, India’s home healthcare market has become more organised. Going beyond physiotherapy and rehabilitation, home healthcare services now include critical and palliative care.
In September last year, 78-year-old Satish Kumar Mathur suffered respiratory failure. His family rushed him to a private hospital in Paschim Vihar, Delhi where he was put on a ventilator for 12 days. Once his condition improved, he was taken home. “He was still critical. He needed oxygen and couldn’t sit on his own. We hired home ICU services from Philips to take care of him. Now, he can walk with support and he hasn’t used an oxygen mask in the past 25 days or so,” says Navneet Mathur, his son-in-law.
Vipin Pathak, CEO of Care24, a healthcare startup, says 30% of his revenue comes from critical-care patients. “There is shortage of 7 lakh hospital beds in India and the quickest, quality-assured, safe way to address this shortfall is to convert home beds into hospital beds,” he says.
Setting up an ICU at home requires an uncluttered space, which is disinfected. Power back-up and stabilizers are put in place for 24×7 power. “We shift the patient home only after the hospital give us a go-ahead,” says Mathur of Critical Care Unified.
ICU-on-rent may find ready users but doctors suggest caution. While ICU-on-rent may find ready users, doctors suggest caution. Dr Vijay D’Silva, director, medical affairs and critical care, Asian Heart Institute, Mumbai says the “home ICU” is a misnomer and a money-making racket. “You cannot replicate ICU care at home. An ICU is a place where everything is available under one roof and care is provided by highly trained people who can detect problems and treat them. What will you do if there’s an emergency at home? These companies provide doctors from allied fields, like ayurveda, homoeopathy. You cannot trust them with medical complications,” he warns.
Critical stats:
Cost: Rs 7,500 to Rs 12,500 per day
Kind Regards
Patrik Hutzel
INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME
If you want to find out how we can help you to get your loved one out of Intensive Care including palliative care or Long-term acute care (also nursing home) or if you find that you have insufficient support for your loved one at home on a ventilator, if you want to know how to get funding for our service or if you have any questions please send me an email to [email protected] or call on one of the numbers below.
Australia/New Zealand +61 41 094 2230
USA/Canada +1 415-915-0090
UK/Ireland +44 118 324 3018
Also, check out our careers section here
www.intensivecareathome.com/careers
We are currently hiring ICU/PICU nurses for clients in Melbourne, Sunbury and in South Gippsland/Victoria.
We are an NDIS, TAC (Victoria) and DVA (Department of Veteran affairs) approved community service provider in Australia.
We have also been part of the Royal Melbourne health accelerator program for innovative health care companies last year!
https://www.thermh.org.au/news/innovation-funding-announced-melbourne-health-accelerator
https://www.melbournehealthaccelerator.com/
Thank you for tuning into this week’s blog.
This is Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME and I see you again next week in another update!