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If you want to know why intensive care nurses are the only option at home for someone on a ventilator with a tracheostomy, stay tuned! I have news for you.
My name is 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 at home whilst providing quality care for long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies at home, medically complex patients at home including Home TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition), home IV potassium infusions, Home BIPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure), Home CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure), as well as home tracheostomy care for adults and children that are not ventilated. We also provide IV antibiotics at home. We also provide home central line management, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line management, port management, as well as Hickman’s line management. We also provide palliative care services at home.
In essence, we provide a genuine alternative for a long-term stay in intensive care and pediatric intensive care. But we have also sent our critical care nurses into the home to avoid emergency department admissions so we are also providing an emergency department bypass service when and if needed.
So today, I want to dig down deeper about why critical care nurses are needed at home for someone on a ventilator with the tracheostomy. From an ICU perspective, it is a no-brainer than anyone with a ventilator and the tracheostomy is in ICU or in intensive care and it should not be any different in the community. I’ll give you evidence today why that is the case, I’ll give you more evidence. I’ve provided evidence on these blogs over and over again. But today, I dig even deeper.
There’s not only the evidence-based Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines on our website that you can access at intensivecareathome.com through the Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines. They are evidence-based guidelines that only critical care nurses with a minimum of two years critical care nursing experience can safely look after someone with a tracheostomy and/or mechanical ventilator. It’s the same in ICU, why would it be any different in the community?
I’ll give you an email today that I have from Sue who actually lost her son in intensive care through a tragic death, and I will show you why the email is related to what we do as Intensive Care at Home.
So, here’s what Sue says,
“Hi Patrik,
My son died in ICU when the nurses (a) had his bed around the wrong way and (b) didn’t monitor him. He died of a hypoxic brain injury as his tracheostomy got blocked when they were changing shifts and didn’t monitor him after we had left. We had to get the nurse to clear his tracheostomy three times during that day. Unfortunately, this happened after we had gone home so we couldn’t get help.
He was getting better, and they were going to remove the tracheostomy the next day as all his vital signs were good. They have not given an explanation and the coroner said he died from a fungal infection.
When we questioned this, they said that they had no information from ICU, only from his admission. We know he died from his brain injury and the blocked tracheostomy, but they will not admit it.
Also, they were supposed to put a cold blanket under and above him to try to preserve his brain. He knew we were there when we arrived an hour after the incident. They only put this blanket on top of him and put the other one in the cupboard.
I’m writing this as a warning for ICUs who don’t monitor 24 hours a day and spend most of their time on their phones. I am devastated.
Thank you, Patrik, for the help you are giving to families with loved ones in intensive care and with Intensive Care at Home. They must listen to you.
Kind regards and with a heavy heart.
From, Sue.”
So, imagine in a situation like that. Obviously, this must be a very bad ICU and I’m not going into detail about where this happened, but this must be a very bad ICU where the ICU can’t manage a blocked tracheostomy. That is what we do with Intensive Care at Home, that’s why we exclusively provide nursing care at home with critical care nurses, 24 hours a day, because that is what is needed when someone is at home on a ventilator with or without a tracheostomy or is at home with the tracheostomy with or without a ventilator.
In a hospital, no hospital ward, no hospital floor can safely look after tracheostomy unless they would exclusively employ intensive care nurses with a minimum of two years intensive care experience ideally with the critical care nursing postgraduate qualification. So, it is an absolute no brainer to do that.
This situation shows, once again, that imagine this would happen in the community and you would have a support worker or general registered nurse, the patient would only die, and it has happened many times. We have evidence for what I’m saying here, that in the community, many patients have died because they didn’t have critical care nurses 24 hours a day, and they died on a ventilator with or without a tracheostomy or they died with a tracheostomy with or without a ventilator because either families or support workers or general registered nurses without ICU experience couldn’t manage medical emergency, including many blocked tracheostomies.
So, imagine they can’t handle this in ICU probably. But once again, every ICU can handle this, but this must be a really bad ICU there, otherwise this wouldn’t have happened. But it just goes to show that we’ve been preaching here for over a decade and what’s been happening in Australia now for over a decade, as well as what’s been happening in Germany for over 25 years now with Intensive Care at Home makes a lot of sense. It’s safe, it’s evidence-based and everything else. Sending a support worker into someone’s home or even a general RN or letting families look after tracheostomy and ventilation is definitely not evidence-based. It’s unsafe and it’s potentially even a crime, that’s how serious this is.
If the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) in Australia thinks they can put an e-module on a website and say, “Oh, the support worker can just do an e-module to look after a ventilator or a tracheostomy participant.” That in my eyes is a crime, it’s negligent and it kills people, and the NDIS is well aware of that, and any other funding body is well aware of it as well that it’s simply unsafe. People need to take responsibility for their actions because otherwise, more patients in the community will die by unsafe and negligence and non-evidence-based practice.
So, I hope that explains more about what families are saying too and what warnings they send to the community really and say, “Hey, look, this is not working, it’s dangerous even in ICU. How can this be safe in the community?”
Well, I can tell you it is very safe in the community. We’ve been providing Intensive Care at Home since 2012 here at intensivecareathome.com all around Australia. Like I said, it’s been happening in Germany for over 25 years. So, patients at home are safe when they have the critical care nurse 24 hours a day.
So, with Intensive Care at Home, currently we are operating all around Australia in all major capital cities as well as in regional and rural areas. We are a NDIS approved service provider. We are a TAC (Transport Accident Commission) approved service provider in Victoria as well as WorkSafe in Victoria, iCare in New South Wales, NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme) in Queensland. We are also a DVA (Department of Veteran Affairs) approved service provider all around Australia. We have also received funding through public hospitals, departments of health as well as through private health funds. So, please reach out to us if you need help at intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send an email to Intensive Care at Home to info@intensivecareathome.com.
We’re also providing Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS Specialist Support Coordination if you need help with NDIS plan management, with NDIS intake, and if you need help with increasing your funding and if you need help with just getting on the NDIS as an intake. We’re also providing NDIS specialist nursing assessments if you need a specialist nursing assessment.
If you are a NDIS support coordinator from another organization watching this and you are a case manager for another funding organization, and you’re looking for nursing care for your participants, for your clients, once again, you will be in very good hands. You can send us your clients or if you need help with the advocacy for funding. Once again, we can write detailed and specialized nursing assessments.
You can actually also read up our testimonial section at intensivecareathome.com.
Also, if you are watching this and you have a family member in ICU long-term or you are in ICU long-term and you’re watching this or you are at home already and you have insufficient support, you’re going back to ICU all the time, or you feel unsafe because of the level of care that is being provided to you. There is a better alternative out there, I encourage you to reach out to us at intensivecareathome.com. We’re the only service in Australia that is currently in 2024 third-party accredited for Intensive Care at Home nursing, no other service has this level of accreditation.
Now, if you are a critical care nurse and you’re looking for a career change, we want to hear from you. If you have worked in critical care and intensive care for a minimum of two years, and you have completed ideally a postgraduate critical care nursing qualification, we want to hear from you.
If you think you can work in the community, it’s a very different dynamic because it’s very patient and family centered. It’s actually a holistic approach and it is our point of difference. I believe that a lot of hospitals are not as patient and family centered as we are, hence, why we are in business.
If you want a career change and you can give us regular availability because we provide a tailor-made solution for our clients, which means regular staff with the regular teams. We are not a nursing agency where people come and go and then we want to hear from you. We are currently providing jobs in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, in Albury, Wodonga, in Bendigo, in Country Victoria, as well as in Warragul in Country Victoria. We want to hear from you.
If you are an intensive care specialist, we are currently expanding our medical team as well. We want to hear from you if you want to work with us.
If you’re an intensive care specialist and you’re working in ICU and you have bed blocks with long-term ventilated adults and children or patients that are on TPN, for example, can’t leave hospital. We want to hear from you as well. We can help eliminate your bed blocks and you won’t even pay for it. We improve the quality of life for your patients and their families. It’s all about partnering with consumers and making it a win-win situation.
If you’re a hospital executive watching this, we also want to hear from you because once again, we can help you eliminate your bed blocks in ICU and ED, respiratory wards. We want to hear from you as well and you don’t even pay for it using our service in most cases.
If you are in the U.S. or in the U.K. and you need help, please reach out to us as well. We can help you there privately.
Once again, reach out to us at intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send an email to info@intensivecareathome.com.
Now, if you like my videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families with Intensive Care at Home. Click the like button, click the notification bell, comment below what you want to see next, what questions and insights you have from this video, and share the video with your friends and families.
I also do a weekly YouTube live where I answer your questions live on the show and you will get notification for the YouTube live if you are a subscriber to my YouTube channel, or if you are a subscriber to our email newsletter at intensivecareathome.com.
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.