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Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com, where we provide tailor-made solutions for long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies. And where we also provide tailor-made solutions for hospitals and intensive care units, whilst providing quality services for our clients including home BiPAP, home CPAP, seizure management, and also Home TPN, and intravenous fluids and IV antibiotic management at home as well.

Now in today’s blog, I want to talk about how we, at Intensive Care at Home, avoid hospital and intensive care admissions. So let me start with, that we provide evidence-based care at home.

When you look at our website at intensivecareathome.com, and you look at the section mechanical home ventilation guidelines, you will see an evidence-based document that clearly confirms that the only way it’s safe to take patients home from intensive care for long-term ventilation with a tracheostomy, for home BiPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure), CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure),  especially if patients have seizures as well, is with intensive care nurses and critical care nurses with a minimum of two-years critical care nursing experience.

Once again, this is an evidence-based document. And yet we are seeing that the clients who don’t have this evidence-based care, they’re going back to hospitals all the time, or even worse, they die. And I will elaborate a little bit more on this, today in this video.

So I’ve made videos about this before, where we looked after a number of NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) participants with tracheostomies and ventilation. And they were only funded for night shifts with registered nurses with critical care nursing experience. And we highlighted to the NDIS at the time that those clients’ lives are at risk during the daytime when we’re not there. And unfortunately, we were absolutely right.

All three clients that we highlighted to the NDIS at the time died during the day because families or support workers or even general registered nurses could not manage the medical emergencies that unfortunately, inevitably can happen with a tracheostomy. And all three clients passed away before an ambulance could even arrive.

So I’ve made videos about this before and again, if someone from the Quality and Safety Commission or from the NDIS watches this video, I urge the NDIS to step up, and look at those cases again. Because otherwise, it will inevitably go to the media at some point if the NDIS is still trying to sweep these cases under the carpet, because a five-year-old, a 17-year-old and a 60-year-old participant passed away under the watch of the NDIS just as we predicted at the time.

So in order to avoid similar situations, going forward, just again to illustrate that we do have the ability to take patients home from intensive care and pediatric intensive care directly. We have done it numerous times. We keep those clients at home predictably, we maximize their quality of life. We cut the cost of an intensive care bed by 50%. We free up adult intensive care and pediatric intensive care beds that can be used for other people, that need critical care. And we look after those clients at home and we enjoy doing it and we know the quality of life we are providing for our clients and for our families, they can stop living in an intensive care unit. And the families can also stop living in an intensive care unit and they can get on with their lives at home. And again, for the hospitals, we free up one of your most sought-after beds in the hospital, which is an intensive care bed.

So coming back to, how we avoid hospital readmissions, there are some clients that we know from our sphere of influence where for example, a two-year-old boy with a tracheostomy lives in ICU because the NDIS doesn’t fund the nursing care. So at least they’re smart enough not to take this child home because then, this child might face the same destiny than other children have, that I just explained where that they didn’t have 24-hour intensive care nurses at home. And yes, the child would be safer in ICU for now. But there’s no quality of life for a two-year-old in ICU, let alone the quality of life for the parents and for the rest of the family.

Then there is another child that we know of, who lives in one of the children’s hospitals who has cerebral palsy and needs deep suctioning all the time and needs BiPAP.  And again, support workers that are employed cannot avoid hospital readmissions, which makes sense. Support workers with all due respect are not trained on deep suctioning. And intensive care nurses have that skill, and critical care nurses have that skill.

And again, by doing so we can avoid hospital readmissions. And again doing that at home 24 hours a day with a critical care nurse is half of the cost than doing it in a hospital where the ICU bed costs 5 to $6000 per bed day. And once again, let alone the quality of life that’s not there in a hospital.

Another case that we know of is a 20-year-old young girl with cerebral palsy as well on BiPAP, who doesn’t have 24-hour intensive care nurses as yet. Just again, as is evidence-based as per our mechanical home ventilation guidelines.  She spends time in the hospital every now and then because support workers can’t keep her home predictably. For us, it always comes down to, keeping people at home predictably. You don’t want to bounce back between hospital and home all the time. There’s no quality of life in there either.

And then there’s another child that we know, a 14-year-old with cerebral palsy and BiPAP and regular seizures who spend a good proportion of the last three months in hospital and in ICU. Again, no intensive care nurses at home as is clinically necessary.

So again, we urge the NDIS to step up to the plate. To make the funding available because it is a win-win situation. And I hope that the NDIS doesn’t want to be responsible for more participant’s death, as they have already been like I explained, responsible for three deaths in the last few years.

And again, Bill Shorten, I urge you to step up to the plate and, not try and sweep it under the carpet. If the NDIS is still trying to sweep it under the carpet, we will talk even more about it. It won’t go away.

So also if you’re an NDIS support coordinator I’m sure you would be highly interested in knowing more about these cases and if you’re an NDIS specialist support coordinator in particular, as you would be well aware, clients with the level of complexity that we are looking after, mainly need specialist NDIS support coordinators to help with the funding, to allocate the funding correctly, help with the advocacy and we can help you with the advocacy as well. We know exactly what needs to happen.

So, you would be welcome to reach out to us and work together with us to get the best outcomes for the clients and obviously get evidence-based outcomes for the clients, which is what I highlighted what is necessary for long-term ventilation, tracheostomy, with the mechanical home ventilation guidelines. So, I hope that explains that.

And if you are a hospital CEO or an intensivist or anyone working in a hospital, being aware that you have bed blocks, you would be very welcome to reach out to us as well because we can help you manage your beds and free up your beds in ICU and pediatric ICU. We can also eliminate the ED readmissions. Again, we’re keeping hospitals free, and hospital beds empty, especially for the chronically ill when it comes to ventilation, tracheostomy, BiPAP, CPAP ventilation, seizure management but also Home TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) and IV (Intravenous) fluids including IV (Intravenous) antibiotics.  We are also now keeping potassium infusions at home with monitoring of course.

And if you have a loved one in intensive care, or a child in intensive care or you have someone at home that’s chronically ill and bouncing back to hospital all the time or to intensive care, please contact us. We can help you with the relevant nursing care and we can also help you with the funding that is required. We know how to go about the funding otherwise, we wouldn’t be in business.

And currently with Intensive Care at Home, we are serving all around Australia, all major capital cities including rural and regional areas. We’re also starting out in the U.S. now. So if you are in Australia, U.S., even in the U.K., please contact us. We can help you one way or another.

Now, if you are a critical care nurse with a minimum of two years of critical care nursing experience, ideally with a postgraduate qualification, please contact us. We have jobs in Melbourne, Victoria or Country Victoria as well as Sydney, New South Wales and Brisbane in Queensland. Please contact us.

If you are an intensive care specialist, please contact us as well. We want to know about you.

We are trying to expand our medical team as well. If you think you align with our values and with our mission, please contact us as well.

I also want to recommend our case studies that you can read on our website and we’ll go from there.

So, in Australia, we are an NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme), TAC (Transport Accident Commission) in Victoria, DVA (Department of Veteran Affairs) as well as ICare-approved community service provider in Australia.

Thank you so much for watching this video.  Now, please subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care and Intensive Care at Home.

 Click the like button, click the notification bell, and comment below what you want to see next and what questions and insights you have from this video.

Thank you so much for watching.

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

And one thing that I forgot to mention if you need an NDIS nursing assessment or a medical record review, please contact us as well.

Take care for now.