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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. We also provide specialized nursing care at home to otherwise medically complex adults and children at home including Home BIPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure), Home CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure), home tracheostomy care when adults and children are not ventilated. Also, Home TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition), Home IV potassium infusions, home IV magnesium infusions, as well as home IV antibiotic infusions. We also provide port management, central line management, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line management, Hickman’s line management, as well as palliative care at home, which also includes ventilation weaning.

We’re also providing our critical care nurses for home care to avoid emergency department readmissions. So, besides keeping ICU beds empty, we also keep emergency department beds empty by sending our critical care nurses into the home. We have done so successfully for the Western Sydney Local Area Health District in-touch program.

So today I have another question from a reader, from Dina who says,

“Hi Patrik,

My sister is in ICU. She has a tracheostomy. They keep putting her back on the ventilator even though she was doing very well two weeks ago by being capped and cannulated. Now, we have to stay until she gets off the ventilator and tracheostomy. She ended up with a pneumonia because they haven’t been mobilizing her, we think. We want her at home as soon as possible. Is it possible to get Intensive Care at Home for the ventilator and tracheostomy weaning at home so we can get out of ICU sooner? She has no quality of life in ICU and she’s getting more and more depressed.”

Well, Dina, thank you so much for sharing your question with me and I’m very sorry to hear what your sister is going through in this situation.

The problem really is that if they’re not mobilizing her, it’ll be very difficult to wean her off the ventilator and she’d be stuck in a vicious cycle. So, it sounds to me like she came very close to being weaned off the ventilator and even have the tracheostomy removed if she was capped on the cannula. So, that’s a good sign. But obviously she must have had some setbacks and now she’s stuck in the ICU and she’s not really moving forward.

So, what to do? Of course, Intensive Care at Home is the best option here because we believe that going home in a situation like that will be a win-win situation for everyone. First off, your sister will have a much better quality of life in her own home. You and your family will have a much better quality of life by being at home because at the moment, it sounds to me like you’re staying day and night in ICU and you’re living there more or less. That’s number one.

Number two, there’s a significant cost reduction in doing Intensive Care at Home compared to going back to an ICU or stay in ICU where the ICU bed costs $5,000 to $6,000 per bed day. Whereas with Intensive Care at Home, we pretty much save half of that cost and whoever is paying right now for the ICU bed will have financial interest in reducing the cost by 50% whilst getting the same level of care at home. Makes perfect sense.

Furthermore, we are helping the ICU to free up an ICU bed and by freeing up an ICU bed, now that bed would be occupied in no time. We’re also freeing up ICU resources such as doctors, nurses, allied health, and so forth. Also, freeing up ICU equipment such as ventilators, beds, suction machines, and the list goes on. So, all in all a win-win situation.

So, what are the next steps here? Next steps are talk to us more and we’ll organize the funding for you. We’ll do all the advocacy. We’ll talk to the funding bodies. Once that’s done, we create a team for you and we organize the equipment, help you with the setup at home. We organize and hire a stable team for your sister, and we get it all set up from there.

We’ve done it many, many times. We’ve been in business since 2012, and we are third party accredited for Intensive Care at Home. We are the only service provider in Australia in 2024 that has achieved this third-party accreditation to provide Intensive Care at Home nursing.

Now, with Intensive Care at Home, we’re currently operating all around Australia, in all major capital cities, as well as in regional and rural areas. We are an NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) approved service provider all around Australia. We are a TAC (Transport Accident Commission) approved and WorkSafe approved in Victoria, iCare in New South Wales, NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme) in Queensland, as well as Department of Veteran Affairs approved service provider all around Australia. We also have received funding through public hospitals, departments of health, as well as private health funds.

We’re also sending our critical care nurses into the homes and residential age care to avoid emergency department admissions.

If you’re at home already or you’re stuck in an ICU like Dina’s sister is in today’s situation with a tracheostomy, with ventilation, no tracheostomy but BIPAP or CPAP ventilation, Home TPN, et cetera, and you realize you need this help, you need Intensive Care at Home, please reach out to us as well. We have helped many, many families in those desperate situations to obtain the funding and get the nursing team set up at home and get critical care nurses at home and improve the quality of life and sometimes quality of end of life for our clients and their families.

We’re also providing Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS Support Coordination. If you want to know more about our Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS support coordination, please reach out to us as well. We’ve done an interview with Amanda Riches which is our NDIS Support Coordinator, and I will link towards that below this video.

If you’re an NDIS Support Coordinator, working for another organization and you’re looking for nursing care for your participants, please reach out to us as well. We’re also providing NDIS specialist nursing assessments and we’re also providing nursing assessments for any other funding body or organization if you need them, especially when it comes to very complex ventilated and tracheostomy clients in the community or in ICU and in hospitals.

If you’re an NDIS Support Coordinator struggling with getting nursing care for your participants, please reach out to us as well. Once again, we have been successfully involved in the advocacy for our clients for nursing care at home from Day 1 and we’ve been very successful in getting that. That is also applicable if you’re a family member or a patient who can’t get nursing care through the NDIS, we can help you.

If you are a critical care nurse and you’re looking for a career change, we want to hear from you as well. If you have worked in critical care for a minimum of two years and you ideally have completed a postgraduate critical care and nursing qualification. we want to hear from you. We currently have jobs in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Albury, Wodonga, Bendigo in Country Victoria, as well as in Warragul in Country Victoria. We want to hear from you.

Please keep in mind we’re looking for critical care nurses that want to complement our team. We want to hire staff that give us regular availabilities because that is what our clients want. Our clients want regular staff, that’s why we can provide a tailor-made solution for our clients and their families. That is what we are exactly providing.

If you’re an intensive care specialist or an ICU consultant, we’re currently also expanding our medical team, we want to hear from you. Reach out to us here at intensivecareathome.com.

If you’re an intensive care specialist and you have bed blocks in your ICU, I encourage you to eliminate your bed blocks by using Intensive Care at Home. We can help you do that. More importantly, we improve the quality of life and sometimes quality of end of life for your patients and their families and you won’t even pay for it.

If you’re a hospital executive watching this, we also want to hear from you because once again, we can help you eliminate bed blocks in ICU, ED, respiratory wards, et cetera.

Once again, our website is intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send us an email to [email protected]. If you’re in the U.S. or in the U.K. or in Canada, please reach out to us as well. We can help you there privately.

If you like my YouTube 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 below, comment below, share the video with your friends and families.

I also do a weekly YouTube live where I answer your questions live on the show. You will get notification for the YouTube live if you’re 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.