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Is INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME A Business Case or A Human Case?
Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com where we provide tailor-made solutions for long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies at home and where we also provide tailor-made solutions for hospitals and intensive care units at home whilst providing quality care for long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies at home, otherwise medically complex adults and children at home, which includes Home BIPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure), Home CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure), home tracheostomy care for adults and children that are not ventilated, Home TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition), home IV potassium, home IV magnesium infusions as well as home IV antibiotics. We also provide port management, central line management, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line management as well as Hickman’s line management and we also provide palliative care at home.
We’re also sending our critical care nurses into the home for emergency department bypass services to keep ED beds empty and save $2,000 per ED bypass patient that we look after at home instead of them going to ED. We have done so successfully in the past for the Western Sydney Local Area Health District, their in-touch program.
Now today, I want to talk about whether Intensive Care at Home is actually a business case or a human case. As part of our marketing over the years, we’ve always talked about that our service is irreplaceable in the community. If you ask our patients and their families, I do argue that our service is invaluable for them because we normalize their lives in situations where they’ve experienced a lot of trauma, unfortunately. But Intensive Care at Home is able to normalize our clients’ lives as much as possible, get them out of ICU, get them back into their own home, and improves quality of life, and in some instances, quality of end of life. That is invaluable, especially they can have a life on their terms outside of a hospital and ICU environment.
So, we’ve elevated ICU care and treatment from a sterile hospital bed space to getting patients home and getting them community access. There’s not one of our clients who doesn’t have community access. If you think about that, what a change going from an ICU bed space to our clients’ home, and then enabling them to have community access, to meet friends, families, go shopping and to have a social life. We’ve elevated the care and treatment way beyond what intensive care teams think is possible, just looking at a crowded and noisy ICU bed space. You have to think outside of the box to make things happen.
By deploying our critical care nursing workforce into the community, we’re running a community based intensive care unit, which drastically if not dramatically, improves the quality of life and in some instances, quality of end of life for our adult and pediatric clients and their families. That’s where real innovation has come into the community. So that’s one side of the coin.
The other side of the coin is the business case. An ICU bed costs $5,000 to $6,000 per bed day. Let me repeat that. An ICU bed costs between $5,000 to $6,000 per bed day within a 24-hour period. It is the most expensive bed in a hospital and is the most sought-after bed in the hospital. If you have a long-term patient in ICU who’s blocking a bed, patients from ED can’t go into ICU because there’s bed blocks. Surgery can’t be done because there’s bed blocks. It only makes perfect sense to take patients out of ICU. Get them under the wings of Intensive Care at Home. Cut the cost of an ICU bed by approximately 50%.
Let me repeat that again that it sinks in. Intensive Care at Home is slashing the cost of an ICU bed by around 50%. On top of that, it frees up a much-needed bed for intensive care units. Once again, ICU beds are the most sought-after beds in the hospital. It frees up staff, it frees up equipment, it frees up resources. Once again, it’s a win-win situation. So, clearly there’s also a business case.
But even in that, there’s a human case because you can admit more patients into ICU in need of critical care. Again, making the health system more efficient. So, it’s not one or the other, it’s both combined. It’s clearly a human case. First of all, it is a human case for patients and for families, but it’s clearly also a very strong business case. There couldn’t be any much stronger business cases in hospitals by cutting the cost of an essential service by 50%, maintain the same quality, and do it in someone’s home, which is what patients want, which is what families want. And again, it’s a clear win-win situation.
I thought I highlight this once again today, to make it clear for everyone, what Intensive Care at Home is bringing to the table. We’re bringing so much value to the table for the healthcare system and it’s almost unheard of. I’ve yet to hear other innovations that can not only improve the quality of life, quality of end of life for patients and their families, but also do it by slashing the cost of 50%.
I’ll wait to hear for your comments on YouTube or on our website at intensivecareathome.com to see whether you know of any other innovation in healthcare that saves 50%, gives patients and families what they really, really want in those situations, that also gives ICUs what they want which is an empty bed. Leave your comments, what do you think.
So, with Intensive Care at Home, we are currently operating all around Australia in all major capital cities as well as in regional and rural areas. We are a NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) approved service provider, TAC (Transport Accident Commission) and WorkSafe in Victoria, iCare in New South Wales, NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme) in Queensland, as well as the DVA (Department of Veteran Affairs) all around the country. Our clients also receive funding through public hospitals, private health funds as well as departments of health.
We are the only provider in Australia in 2024 that has achieved third-party accreditation for Intensive Care at Home nursing. No other service provider in 2024 in Australia has achieved a higher level of accreditation in this field in the community, and no other service provider has built more intellectual property in this space to serve our clients safely. We are, therefore, in a position to employ hundreds of years of intensive care and critical care nursing experience combined in the community. I believe, once again, that is unmatched in 2024 in Australia. No other provider brings this high skill level into the community and no other provider in Australia can look after a higher acuity in the community safely.
You might be watching this, and you might be at home already, but you are realizing that not having critical care nurses puts your life at risk. I’ve just done a video a couple of weeks ago where I highlighted another death in the community where a ventilated client has been looked after on a 24-hour support worker model and has once again died. I know now of at least 10 deaths in the community where a support worker model has killed long-term ventilated adults and children with a tracheostomy because it’s not a support worker job, it’s an intensive care nursing job. People who might have, with all respect, worked in a supermarket last week now are asked to look after a critically ill patient on a ventilator with a tracheostomy. That is doomed to fail, and it’s doomed to kill people.
We’ve warned against this from Day 1 of Intensive Care at Home and yet it is still happening because the NDIS and other funding bodies are negligent. They don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t understand this space. They don’t understand that not even a general registered nurse can look after a ventilated client in the community and let alone a support worker. It’s negligent and people need to be brought to justice. I argue, people need to go to jail if this continues to happen where a super cheap model is trying to be used.
What happened in the community a couple of weeks ago is, apparently, one of my very trusted industry associates told me that a support worker was going out in the community with a ventilated child. The battery of the ventilator was half dead, but the support worker didn’t notice because they wouldn’t even know how to check the battery on a ventilator. Of course not, because they’re not intensive care trained. Then the battery died, the ventilator stopped, and they did have no emergency equipment with them, which means the client suffocated to death. It’s terrible, terrible, terrible. But it is bound to happen if you send support workers into the community instead of intensive care nurses.
Coming back, if you’re at home already and you realize you have a similar model, but you need an evidence-based model because Intensive Care at Home is all evidence based. You can’t tell me that a support worker model is evidence based. It’s not evidence based; it’s made up out of thin air. It’s a lot of crap and it kills people.
So, whatever set up at home may not be working for you if you’re ventilated with or without tracheostomy, if you have a tracheostomy with or without ventilation, you realize you’re unsafe because you don’t have intensive care nurses and you don’t have the right funding, I urge you to reach out to us because we can help you with the funding, we can help you with the nurses. We’ve been successfully involved in the advocacy for our clients from Day 1 and that’s why we are in business.
So, if you’re in hospital and you’re watching this and you think, “Hey, how can I get home?” Please contact us at intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send us an email to info@intensivecareathome.com.
Also, we’re also providing Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS Support Coordination. We’re also providing TAC case management, and we can help you and your family to get on the NDIS as well. We have a NDIS support coordinator and TAC case manager, Amanda Riches. I’ve done an interview with Amanda that I’ll linked towards below this video.
If you’re a NDIS support coordinator from another organization watching this and you’re looking for nursing care for your participants, especially when it comes to ventilation, tracheostomy, home TPN and so forth, please reach out to us as well. Or if you’re looking for funding for more nursing care as a NDIS support coordinator and you don’t know how to advocate for it, please reach out to us. We’re the expert at it. We also provide NDIS specialist nursing assessments. Our nursing assessments are done by critical care nurses with a legal nurse consultant background.
If you’re a critical care nurse and you’re looking for a career change, you might have come to the right place. We’re currently offering jobs for critical care nurses with a minimum of two years ICU critical care nursing experience, ideally with the postgraduate critical care qualification in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Albury, Wodonga, Bendigo, Warragul, and also in Geelong.
Because we are offering a tailor-made solution for our clients and their families, which includes regular staff and regular teams. Our clients want the same staff coming over and over again because they are extremely, extremely vulnerable. It’s all about building critical relationships and having regular staff on regular teams. This also means that if you are potentially looking for agency work and you want to come and go, this may not be the right fit for you because we’re looking to engage with you on a long-term basis and our clients want to engage with you on a long-term basis. So, it’s all about building critical relationships long-term so that it remains a win-win situation for everyone.
If you are an intensive care specialist or ED specialist, we also want to hear from you. We are currently expanding our medical team.
We can help you eliminate your bed blocks in ICU and ED for your long-term patients or for your patients that come in regularly. We’re here to help you to take the pressure off your ICU and ED beds. In most cases, you won’t even pay for it. But even if you do pay for it, it will be much, much more cost-effective than the actual ICU or ED bed.
Lastly, if you’re in the U.S. or in the U.K. and you’re watching this and you need help, please reach out to us. We can help you there privately.
Once again, contact us at intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or simply send us an email to info@intensivecareathome.com.
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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.