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INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME is Taking Another Client Home on TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) & PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) Line After 6 Months in Hospital
I want to know if we can help you or your family member that’s stuck in hospital on TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) or IV (intravenous) nutrition, stay tuned. I share an update today, how we can help you.
My name is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com. Let’s dive into this week’s topic, which is Home TPN.
Last week, we’ve just taken home another client on home TPN. The client was stuck in hospital since about September or August last year, 2024. It nearly took 6 months for them until they could be discharged for the simple reason that they didn’t find out about us until a few weeks ago.
The bottom line here and the purpose of this video today is, if you are stuck in hospital on TPN, which is IV nutrition and TPN stands for Total Parenteral Nutrition, and you have a PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line, Hickman’s line, a central line or a port-a-cath that is needed for the TPN. The good news is we can manage all of that at home and we can help you get you home, just like we’ve done with this particular client last week.
What are the services we are providing for a situation like that? The services that we are providing are the nursing care, of course, the connect and disconnect of TPN. That means, whenever the TPN is getting connected and run through an infusion pump, one of our critical care nurses comes, connects the TPN, makes sure the line is patent, and makes sure it’s a sterile connection. Of course, it needs to be a sterile procedure. The same is true when the line gets disconnected. We can come twice a day, but also some TPN is running over 24 hours, basically means we only need to come once a day for the swap of the bag. The line needs to be flushed and needs to be maintained, of course, sterile. Bloods need to be taken every so often to make sure that the numbers are okay, electrolytes, all other blood results for blood counts, and so forth. These need to be monitored, and that is also part of our service.
For some clients in the past, we have also provided a 24-hour nursing care service for the TPN, depending on the client’s situation, whether they had other issues such as ventilation, tracheostomy, of course, but also if they had line blockages, air alarms, and so forth. It really depends on your situation, and what you need for your unique situation to go home from hospital. But the good news is, don’t let the hospital tell you that home TPN can’t be done because we’ve been doing it for so many clients. Here’s another case study where I can show you we can do it, and we are doing it.
Other services we provide when it comes to home TPN is to organize the TPN through a third party, of course. There are companies out there who are providing TPN in the community. At the moment, we’re currently using Baxter, and other services are that we are providing, we’re liaising with an intensivist who prescribes the TPN and who’s also overseeing the patient from a medical perspective.
So, if you’re stuck in hospital on TPN, and I know there are many people out there who are stuck in hospitals on TPN, and perceptually, they can’t go home because the hospital says, “You can’t go home, it’s not possible.” We’ll, forget about all of that. Give us a call, talk to us, and we can show you a pathway forward how to go home. We can also talk about the cost and who’s going to pay for that. I’ll talk about the cost more in a minute, but logistically and operationally, this is all possible. We’ve done it, we are doing it with a number of clients in the community. Just because you’re stuck in hospital for months on end doesn’t mean we can’t take you home, not at all. We also have the network with doctors, with Baxter and other suppliers that provide the network to make all of that happen.
Our critical care nurses come to your home once or twice a day, or for 24 hours a day, depending on what you need to keep you at home safely and have the TPN run safely, including all the blood checks and IV fluids. Sometimes a TPN goes hand in hand with IV fluids as well, which is the case with the client that we’ve just taken home last week. So, we can also give IV fluids if that needs to be given on top of the TPN. I hope that helps you understand more about home TPN and what’s possible.
It’s the same if you’re a doctor or a nurse or a hospital executive watching this and you have bed blocks in your hospital because of home TPN. I can only encourage you to reach out to us because we can help you free up your hospital beds that are blocked by potential patients stuck in there on TPN.
There’s also patients in ICU that are on TPN, ventilated, tracheostomy, that’s also part of our wheelhouse, because with Intensive Care at Home we are 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, tracheostomy, Home BIPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure), Home CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure), ventilation without tracheostomy, tracheostomy without ventilation, Home TPN, home IV potassium infusions, home IV magnesium infusions, IV fluids, and IV antibiotics. We’re also providing ventilation weaning at home. We’re also providing ventilation weaning at home. We’re also providing central line management, PICC line management, Hickman’s line management, as well as port-a-cath management at home. We’re also providing nasogastric tube management, PEG (Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy) tube management at home, as well as palliative care services 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. Therefore, we’re also 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. We are 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 which is 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’re 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 providers, 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 in 2025. We have been achieving this level of accreditation since 2012. No other provider has achieved this high level of accreditation in the community 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, I’ll give you a very tangible example today. One of our first clients over about 10 years ago was a client who was at home on a ventilator with a tracheostomy, with the 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 the cabin crew instead of the pilot, because anyone on a ventilator with a tracheostomy is at very high risk of medical emergency or dying if they don’t have critical care nurses looking after them 24/7.
This is evidence-based, and it’s documented in our Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines that you can find on our website. Think about it, in intensive care in a hospital, you wouldn’t have support workers to look after a critical care patient on a ventilator with a tracheostomy. So, why would anyone in their right mind do that in a home care environment in the community?
So eventually, this client found out about us. 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. 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. The same is applicable for those stuck in ICU similar to our case study today. Reach out to us, we’ll make it happen for you. We can take you through the right steps.
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 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 and 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 are a critical care nurse and you’re looking for a career change, and you want to join a very progressive, dynamic, and high performing team of critical care nurses in the community, we are employing hundreds of years of critical care nursing experience combined. If you’re looking for a career change, we’re 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 to 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, and that’s why we need regular staff. So, if you are 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 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, and in most cases, you won’t even pay for it. Even if you do pay for it, it is much more cost effective than what you’re paying for ICU and ED, and you get the same level of care.
If you are a hospital executive watching this and you have bed blocks in your ICU, ED, respiratory wards, Home TPN, of course, please reach out to us as well. We can help you eliminate your bed blocks 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 and hiring nurses privately.
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.