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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 by improving their Quality of life and where we also provide tailor made solutions to hospitals and Intensive Care Units to save money and resources, whilst providing Quality Care!
In the last blog I talked about
What are the outcomes for Patients at home on ventilation and tracheostomy?
You can check out last week here.
In this week’s blog I want to answer a question that we get quite frequently
What is long term home ventilation?
Generally speaking long-term home ventilation can be broken down into a few categories.
Let’s look at them in more detail.
- Long-term invasive ventilation with tracheostomy
- Long-term ventilation with non-invasive ventilation such as CPAP/BIPAP
Both forms of ventilation generally speaking in a hospital require admission to specialist areas such as intensive care (ICU) or to other higher acuity areas such as high dependency units (HDU).
It usually requires the skills of highly specialised doctors and nurses to look after Patients that are ventilator dependent.
At the end of the day invasive mechanical ventilation with tracheostomy as well as non-invasive ventilation with CPAP/BIPAP are forms of life support that can’t be managed by amateurs but need to be managed by highly skilled ICU or PICU nurses in those environments.
When it comes to mechanical long-term ventilation it is often challenging to map out the pathway for Patients that are stuck in ICU/PICU ventilator dependent.
The good news is that with such a highly specialised service like INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME a much earlier discharge home from intensive care (ICU) or paediatric ICU (PICU) is possible.
Previous and outdated paradigms in intensive care (ICU) suggested that a Patient in ICU is having two options.
- They recover, leave intensive care and go to a hospital ward
- They die
That’s a fairly bleak and “black and white” approach and not in line with current trends.
Given that more and more lives are saved in ICU/PICU and given that some of those Patients do require long-term invasive ventilation with tracheostomy, those Patients stay in ICU/PICU for much longer than necessary and now those Patients can continue care and treatment at home instead.
Our service INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME takes those Patients home whether on mechanical ventilation with tracheostomy or whether they need mechanical non-invasive ventilation such as BIPAP/CPAP.
We do this by providing a third party accredited intensive care substitution service by sending ICU/PICU nurses into the home 24/7.
This gives our clients and their families choice to continue care and treatment at home and it enables our clients to leave intensive care to improve their quality of life and in some instances quality of end of life at home.
It’s a much better option than staying in intensive care long-term.
It improves our clients and their families quality of life and in some instances quality of end of life.
Long-term home ventilation can be broken down further into the following options:
Part of our services is also to wean Patients off ventilation and tracheostomy at home if the Patient’s condition allows.
To give you a better overview of what we exactly do please have a look at our case studies here
Furthermore, on a “bigger picture” level, we know that long-term ventilated Patients (adults and children) in ICU/PICU want to leave ICU/PICU as quickly as possible. Home care is simply the better option as you can’t beat home!
Moreover, ICU/PICU beds are in high demands, therefore ICU’s/PICU’s often have an interest in sending out their Patients when possible and with INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME it is possible.
Besides, ICU/PICU beds cost $5,000- $6,000 per bed day and INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME is about 50% of that cost!
Hence we provide a win-win situation for all stakeholders! We provide our clients and their families with a much improved quality of life/quality of end of life and we are cutting the cost of the most expensive hospital bed to 50% of the original cost!
Kind Regards
Patrik Hutzel
If you want to find out how we can help you to get your loved one out of Intensive Care including palliative care or Long-term acute care (also nursing home) or if you find that you have insufficient support for your loved one at home on a ventilator, if you want to know how to get funding for our service or if you have any questions please send me an email to [email protected] or call on one of the numbers below.
Australia/New Zealand +61 41 094 2230
USA/Canada +1 415-915-0090
UK/Ireland +44 118 324 3018
Also, check out our careers section here
www.intensivecareathome.com/careers
We are currently hiring ICU/PICU nurses for clients in the Melbourne metropolitan area, northern suburbs, Mornington Peninsula and in South Gippsland/Victoria.
We are 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 here
https://intensivecareathome.com/services
We have also been part of the Royal Melbourne health accelerator program for innovative health care companies last year!
https://www.thermh.org.au/news/innovation-funding-announced-melbourne-health-accelerator
https://www.melbournehealthaccelerator.com/
Thank you for tuning into this week’s blog.
This is Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME and I see you again next week in another update!
RELATED LINKS:
3 reasons why long term mechanically ventilated Customers, their families and Intensive Care Units need specialised Intensive Home Care Nursing services in the community
How long should a Patient be on a ventilator before having a Tracheostomy?
Majority of Australians not dying the way they want to, Grattan Institute report finds, as care becomes more institutionalised!
Travelling with long-term ventilated adults on a ventilator with tracheostomy, not a gimmick but a reality!
INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME: Better home care solutions for long-term ventilated adults & children with tracheostomies!
