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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 whilst providing quality care and where we also provide tailor made solutions for hospitals and Intensive Care Units to save money and resources where we provide win-win situations for all of our stakeholders and clients.
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, I answer another question from one of our readers and potential clients. Carolyn is writing in and she asks,
Is it Possible For My Mom to be Weaned Off the Ventilator at Home through Intensive Care at Home?
Hi Patrik,
I came across your website, intensivecareathome.com and I also heard from some of your clients about your intensive care at home services. From what I read and from what I heard from your clients, it is possible for people to be weaned off the ventilator at home.
My mom who’s 72 is currently on a ventilator and tracheostomy in an ICU in Melbourne. She’s been in the ICU for about two months now, and they want to transfer her to another hospital with a long-term weaning unit in Melbourne to continue the weaning process. We are not happy with the quality of care she’s been receiving in the ICU, and we are worried that it will get worse at the long-term weaning unit at the other hospital here in Melbourne.
We haven’t heard many good things about this weaning unit. I wanted to see how we could possibly continue to wean her at home, for example, where do we purchase a ventilator, necessary equipment and accessories besides 24 hours, seven days a week, 365 days ICU nursing.
Where do we contract respiratory physicians? How do we do arterial blood gas testing? Please let us know as soon as possible. If you can provide these services, as my mom may be transferring out of ICU very soon, and we’re trying to avoid this and rather get her home.
Thank you.
From Carolyn.
Hi Carolyn,
Thank you so much for writing in, to cut to the chase, yes, it is definitely possible for patients to be weaned at home. We have been doing this successfully on a couple of occasions.
Now, given that your mom has been struggling to come off the ventilator for a couple of months now, it’s probably fair to say that the weaning process might take a little bit longer. Please bear in mind though, that intensive care at home is a great service for the right patient at the right time.
If your mom has any chance to come off the ventilator in the next couple of weeks, she probably should stay, get off the ventilator and then go home because going home off the ventilator is just so much easier, but nevertheless, if your mom wants to come home on a ventilator for weaning, we can certainly do that.
You’re asking, where do you purchase a ventilator and necessary accessories? Now, most of the time when we take clients home, the hospitals or funding bodies provide the equipment as well, as much as they fund the nursing service as well, the 24-hour intensive care at home nursing service.
In terms of accessing doctors, respiratory physicians in particular, but also intensivists, again, it’s probably best to talk to us. We can help you with setting you up with the right people.
And then you’re asking, how do you do ABG testing? Well, there are some ABG tests available that you can do it at home. They do it in ED or in the emergency department, emergency rooms as well with a capillary test.
So the process going home needs to be well-thought through. We have done it many, many times, and again, we can help you with that as well, setting you up with ICU nurses at home 24-hours a day and go from there and then we can start with the weaning at home.
So I really hope that answers your question and thank you for tuning into this week’s blog. Take care.
Now, if you have a loved one in intensive care and you want to go home with our service intensive care at home and if you want to find out how to get funding for our service and how it all works, please contact us on one of the numbers on the top of our website, or send me an email to [email protected]. That’s Patrik, just with a K at the end.
Please also have a look at our case studies because there we highlight more about what we can do for clients, how clients can live at home with ventilation and tracheostomies and you can look at our case studies as well at our service section
Intensive care at home Case studies
And if you are at home already and you need support for your critically ill loved one at home, and you have insufficient support or insufficient funding, please contact us as well. We can help you with all of that.
And if you are an intensive care nurse or a pediatric intensive care nurse with a minimum of two years, ICU or pediatric ICU experience, and you ideally have a critical care certificate, please contact us as well. Check out our career section on our website. We are currently hiring ICU and pediatric ICU nurses for clients in the Melbourne metropolitan area, Northern suburbs, Mornington Peninsula, Frankston area, South Gippsland, as well as Wollongong in New South Wales.
www.intensivecareathome.com/careers
So we are also an NDIS, TAC (Victoria) and DVA (Department of Veteran affairs) approved community service provider in Australia. Also have a look at our range of full service provisions.
Also, we have been part of the Royal Melbourne health accelerator program in the past for innovative healthcare companies.
https://www.thermh.org.au/news/innovation-funding-announced-melbourne-health-accelerator
https://www.melbournehealthaccelerator.com/
Thank you for watching this video and thank you for tuning into this week’s blog.
This is Patrik from intensive care at home, and I’ll see you again next week in another update.