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Sarah wants to know if her 64-year-old mom who’s been in ICU for 2 months on a ventilator with a tracheostomy can go home with Intensive Care at Home. Let’s look at that in more detail today.

My name is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com, and I’ll read out Sarah’s email.

“Hi Patrik,

My name is Sarah. My 64-year-old mom is currently in ICU on a ventilator. She also has a tracheostomy. She’s been in ICU for about 2 months, and she had the tracheostomy for about 4 weeks now. She’s been told she may have to go into a care home, but she wants to go home with Intensive Care at Home.

Every test my mom has had done has come back clear. So, the doctors have really no idea as to what resulted in mom needing a ventilator and a tracheostomy in the first place. She had a knee replacement last year, and her health declined after the replacement.

Now, my question is, can my mom go home with Intensive Care at Home if someone could put a ventilator into her home? They’re mobilizing her every day, and she’s getting out of bed, but so far, she’s failing any spontaneous breathing trials .

Sarah, thank you so much for sharing what’s happening with your mom. It sounds like a really tough and confusing situation for you and your family. Let me give you clear, informed responses to your questions.

So, can your mom go home with a ventilator and a tracheostomy? Yes, absolutely possible for your mom to go home on a ventilator with a tracheostomy provided that she’s medically stable, even if she’s still ventilator dependent. Medically stable means, her heart is stable, her blood pressure is stable, so she’s not on any vasopressors or inotropes. Home intensive care services arranged with Intensive Care at Home, this obviously would include 24/7 skilled ICU or critical care trained nurses, which is what we are providing here at Intensive Care at Home.

Next, obviously, your home environment needs to be safe and suitable with necessary equipment and backup power, i.e., hospital bed, wheelchair, two home ventilators, two suction machines, two monitors, nebulizer machines, hoist and so forth. But we can help you with arranging all of that and setting it all up, making sure that before you’re going home, it’s actually safe.

Again, Intensive Care at Home makes all of that possible because our service is designed for patients like your mom, who are stable but ventilator dependent and want to avoid going into a nursing home or somewhere else, or stay in ICU forever. Then, the reality is, as much as the hospital might have shared with you, she might need to go into a care home. I argue no care home will take her, not in Australia anyway. No care home is set up to look after a ventilator and the tracheostomy, it’s just not what’s happening in Australian care homes.

Now, a few other key things to know. Spontaneous breathing trial failure just means she still needs ventilator support. But it doesn’t disqualify her from going home with obviously the right set up with Intensive Care at Home with 24-hour intensive care nurses. If all tests have come back clear and she’s mobilizing with help, that is a strong sign she may be suitable for home care if ventilation remains the only barrier.

Hospital system often push for care homes due to funding or logistical reasons, but your mom has rights, including the right to choose a home, discharged with appropriate support, like Intensive Care at Home. Hospitals, even ICUs, don’t even know what’s happening outside of ICU really, and they don’t even know that the care home is not really an option for someone as complex as your mom because she would need 1:1 nurse to patient ratio with intensive care nurses, even if she was to go to a care home.

So, what needs to happen to make a home discharge possible? Assessment by Intensive Care at Home to ensure the safety. Obviously, we need to set up a 24/7 roster with intensive care nurses at home, with emergency response protocols, and physiotherapist protocols as well, care plans, emergency plans, safety plans, potentially home modifications and equipment set up including ventilator with backup, suction machines, oxygen supply if needed, emergency power source and like I said, two suction machines, two ventilators, nebulizer, monitors, oxygen supply, and emergency power source.

Next, funding needs to be put in place as well. But always keep in mind that there is a clear business case for your mom going home because the cost of an ICU bed is $5,000 to $6,000 per bed day, whereas Intensive Care at Home costs around 50% of that. It’s a win-win situation for everyone and the ICU clearly is already getting nervous wanting your mom out. We free up a bed for them, which makes a lot of sense, so that a win-win situation can be achieved.

If your loved one is in a similar situation, just reach out to us at intensivecareathome.com, or if you’re ICU consultant or ICU nurse watching this or you’re working in ICU maybe as a physio, you’re watching this and you know of other patients that would benefit from Intensive Care at Home in those situations, please reach out to us.

So, with Intensive Care at Home, we are currently sending our ICU and critical care nurses into the home, 24 hours a day. We are providing the following:

• Home care services for ventilated  adults & children with tracheostomies  with critical care nurses 24 hours a day
• Genuine alternative to a long-term stay in intensive care or at long-term acute care
• Tracheostomy care
• Home care services for patients on non-invasive ventilation, such as Home BIPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure), Home CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) 
• Home TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition), which is also known as IV nutrition
• Home IV potassium and home IV magnesium infusions, IV fluids, and IV antibiotics
• Providing central line management, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line management, Hickman’s line management, as well as port management at home.
• Providing nasogastric tube  and PEG (Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy)  tube management at home
• Use cough assist machines for our clients for airway clearance at home
• Palliative care services at home
• Ventilator weaning 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 them going to an emergency department.

That also means, we’re also in a position to cut the cost of an intensive care bed by around 50%. An intensive care bed costs between $5,000 to $6,000 per bed day. Our services costs between $2,500 to $3,000 per bed day, and we’re 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. Of course, quality of life is much improved surrounded by families instead of staying in an intensive care unit.

With Intensive Care at Home, we are currently operating all around Australia in all major capital cities as well as in all regional and rural areas. We’re a NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) approved service provider all around Australia, TAC (Transport Accident Commission) and WorkSafe in Victoria, and Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA) all around Australia. Our clients and we, as a service provider, have also received funding through public hospitals, private health funds, as well as Departments of Health.

We are currently the only service provider in Australia that has achieved third-party accreditation for Intensive Care at Home nursing in 2025. We have been achieving this level of accreditation since 2012. No other provider in Australia has created more intellectual property when it comes to Intensive Care at Home nursing than we have. This 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, or you’re stuck in an ICU, or if you’re going to the hospital and ED all the time and you realize that you don’t have the right level of support at home, or if you’re living in an ICU, I’ll give you another tangible and real-world example today.

One of our first clients when we first got started in 2012, was a client who was at home initially on a ventilator with a tracheostomy with a support worker model 24/7. Of course, support workers are not equipped to look after a client at home on a ventilated and tracheostomy client. That is dangerous and it’s negligent. Having support workers looking after a client at home on a ventilator with a tracheostomy. It’s 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 emergencies 24/7, or even at risk of dying if they don’t have a team of critical care nurses looking after them 24/7 at home. This is actually evidence-based and is documented in our Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines that you can find on our website at intensivecareathome.com.

Think about it, in an intensive care unit in a hospital, you wouldn’t have support workers looking after your critically ill loved one or after any critically ill 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, this client found out about us eventually and the ICU that he went back to all the time also knew about us and eventually reached out to us. We were proving our concept with this client very fast. When we worked with this particular client, we sent him intensive care nurses, 24 hours a day. He never ever went back into ICU ever again, as long as we working with this client.

We can do the same for you if you’re not safe at home and help you with keeping you at home predictably. Otherwise, we would not be in business. The same is applicable for those stuck in an ICU, similar to our case study that I’ve given you, or if you’re going back to ED all the time, please reach out to us. We can help you with taking you through the right steps including how to get funding with different funding bodies.

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 I’ll put a link to an interview with Amanda in the written version of this blog. We’re also providing TAC case management in Victoria.

If you’re a 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 need more evidence for nursing care, we are also writing NDIS nursing assessments with legal nurse critical care consulting nurses.

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’re employing hundreds of years of critical care nursing experience combined. You can join this high performing team.

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, 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 hearing from you.

I do have a disclaimer though, because we are offering a tailor-made solution for our clients, which includes regular staff, our clients also 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’re 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 availabilities for shifts and you’re really keen on building solid relationships with us and with our clients.

If you are 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 your ICU and in your 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. In most cases, you won’t even pay for it. Even if you do pay for it, it is so much more cost-effective than what you’re paying for in ICU and ED, and you get the same level of care.

If you’re a hospital executive watching this and you have bed blocks in your ICU, ED, and respiratory wards, or home TPN, please reach out to us as well. We can help you eliminate your bed blocks very 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 with 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].

If you like my videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel  for regular updates for families with Intensive Care at Home and intensive care. Click the like button, click the notification bell, share this video with your friends and families, and comment below what you want to see next or what questions and insights you have from this video.

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.