Who else wants to save some money and resources in Intensive Care?

If you have been following my blog in the last 6 months would have seen me talking about what Intensive Home Care Nursing does for ventilated Adults& Children with Tracheostomy in terms of improving their Quality of Life and/or their Quality of end of Life. I have also mentioned what Intensive Home Care Nursing does for Families of those ventilated Adults& Children with Tracheostomy, improving their Quality of Life as well. If you are new to this blog you can read previous articles on www.intensivecareathome.com.au/blog or you can look up some case studies on www.intensivecareathome.com.au/case_studies
There is the other side of this spectrum, after we established that Quality of Life and/or Quality of-end-of-Life in their own home is a worthwhile goal for anybody in Intensive Care who is long-term ventilated with a Tracheostomy. The other side of the spectrum is the cost analysis/ cost containment and the management of the massive costs in Intensive Care.
Most people would know that Intensive Care is one of the most specialised areas within Health Care and we also know that people working in this environment go through years of training and specialisation of their nursing or medical skills in order to provide the best possible care very acute and very sick Patients require. This is what makes this area so special, but it also makes it very expensive.
With that in mind, we need to look at cost containment in Intensive Care and in Health Care in general. Whilst there are fewer Patients in Intensive Care, compared to other areas within a Hospital, those Patients tend to use large amounts of resources within the Hospital. 24/7 one on one nursing care, Medical staff, allied health, expensive equipment etc…
Breaking the Patient population down in Intensive Care, there are few Patients requiring long-term ventilation with Tracheostomy for a variety of reasons- (you can find more info on www.intensivecareathome.com.au/faq ) but those Patients are very expensive to look after, whilst they and their Families have no Quality of life, very little privacy and very little dignity in a Critical Care environment. Not only are they very expensive to look after, those long-term ventilated Adults& Children with Tracheostomy also take up expensive resources that could be used for more acute and clinically unstable Patients. Some Intensive Care Units at times have an overflow of Patients and they sometimes can’t accommodate new admissions, due to those “bed blocks” caused by long-term ventilated Adults& Children with Tracheostomy. We also know that some Hospitals have surgical/ medical waiting lists that they want to reduce and by freeing up expensive beds in Intensive Care, those waiting lists could be reduced as well.
Overall, there is plenty of scope for improvement in the Quality of Life/ Quality of-end-of-Life for long- term ventilation for Adults& Children with Tracheostomy and their Families and there are cost savings and cost containments to be realised for Public and Private Intensive Care Units, for Departments of Health, for Private Health Insurances as well as for other Health service funders.
If you are a health professional in Intensive Care and you think you know a long-term ventilated Adult or Child with Tracheostomy and their Family who would like to improve their Quality of Life and/or their Quality of end of Life and if your organisation would also like to save money and resources along the way simply give us a call on 03-9939 7456 or simply send me an email to [email protected]
Have a great day!
Patrik Hutzel

YOUR INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME

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