Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Hi it’s Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME where we provide tailor made solutions for long-term ventilated Adults & Children with Tracheostomies and where we also provide tailor made solutions for hospitals and Intensive Care Units whilst providing quality services for long-term ventilated patients and medically complex patients at home, including home TPN.
In last week’s blog, I talked about,
You can check out last week’s blog by clicking on the link below this video:
In today’s blog post, I want to answer a question from one of our clients and the question today is
Is INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME Looking After Adults and Children at Home with Tracheostomies?
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 non-invasively ventilated adults and children, for example, when they’re on BiPAP or on CPAP. We also provide 24-hour intensive home care nursing for clients with a tracheostomy that are not ventilated. And we also provide home TPN, which is also known as IV or intravenous nutrition.
Now, a question that we get quite frequently which I want to hone in today, is do you do tracheostomy care without ventilation? There are people in ICU that are not ventilated but have a tracheostomy. And, do we do that as well? Do we look after adults and children with tracheostomies that are not ventilated as well? Yes, of course we do. That’s bread and butter for us.
And then some people ask, well, but if they’re not ventilated, do they still need an ICU nurse? Well, that’s a great question to ask. And the answer is yes, of course they do.
So when someone has a tracheostomy that’s an artificial airway. And an artificial airway, all sorts of things can go wrong. They can get blocked. They need daily maintenance, like dressings need to be changed. They often have inner cannulas. Inner cannulas, need to be changed regularly. Patients with tracheostomies often need nebulization multiple times a day. They need suctioning multiple times a day. For some tracheostomy clients, they may not be ventilated, but they may need a cough assist machine to expand airways. So as you can see, when someone has a tracheostomy, it’s not straightforward, and they need the expertise of an intensive care nurse with a minimum of two years of ICU or pediatric ICU experience and that is evidence-based.
When you look at the mechanical home ventilation guidelines on our website, I’ll put a link below this video so you can click on the Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines. You will see that those evidence and research-based guidelines say that only ICU or pediatric ICU nurses with a minimum of 2 years ICU experience can safely look after tracheostomy and ventilation at home. Otherwise, people’s lives are at danger. And to illustrate that we’ve had clients in the past where we were only funded for night shifts for three clients. As a matter of fact, we were only funded for night shifts. Two of them had a tracheostomy. They weren’t ventilated. One had a tracheostomy and one was ventilated. And just as we predicted at the time, we were funded for night shifts during the day, families or support workers were looking after those clients. And lo and behold, all three clients passed away during the day because either families or support workers could not manage medical emergencies that led ultimately to those patients passing away during the absolute tragedy, which could have been avoided.
But, that’s the reality that funding bodies, especially here in Australia, the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme), it’s a bunch of bureaucrats that are making decisions about people’s lives. And it’s quite clear they can’t make decisions about people’s lives because those clients are no longer alive. And I go as far as that the NDIS needs to be taken into account that some people, I believe need to be brought to justice here because clearly people have died and its time that the NDIS comes to the party and look at what’s really happening in the community, look at the realities, and employs also some clinical people because from what we know, those people that make decisions that the NDIS are not ICU nurses, they’re not ICU doctors, they’re not even health professionals. They’re often just bureaucrats with, no health care education whatsoever.
So here at Intensive Care at Home, we work with evidence-based guidelines because that’s what it comes down to. After decades of Intensive Care at Home nursing in Australia and also in other countries, the research has been done. We don’t need the NDIS or other funding bodies to say what’s clinically relevant because we know what’s clinically relevant.
Also we employ hundreds of years of intensive care nursing experience in the community. So I don’t think you’ll find another service that brings more expertise to the table than our service. We’re also the only service that is actually accredited for Intensive Care at Home nursing. So we have policies, procedures, we have built intellectual property that’s third party accredited to provide this service.
So I hope that helps.
I hope that sheds light on the situation, especially if you have a family member with a tracheostomy or if you have a tracheostomy yourself, you should 100% 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 [email protected].
Also, have a look at our membership for families in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org. There you have access to me and my team, and we answered all questions Intensive care and Intensive Care at Home related 24 hours a day in a membership area and via email.
If you need a medical record review while your loved one is in ICU or after ICU you should contact us as well. We can help you with medical record reviews and help you there.
Now, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for Intensive Care at Home and Intensive Care Hotline. Share the video with your friends and families. Click the like button, click the notification bell and comment below what you want to see next, or what questions and insights you have.
Thanks for watching.
This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com, and I’ll talk to you in a few days.