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Why Critical Care Nurses are Needed 24/7 for Long Term Ventilation & Tracheostomy in the Community!
Hi, it’s 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 whilst providing quality services for long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies, and also 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) . We also provide IV potassium, IV magnesium infusions at home as well as IV antibiotic infusions at home. We also provide port management, central line management, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line management, Hickman’s line management, as well as palliative care services at home, and that also includes ventilation weaning at home.
We have also provided an emergency department (ED) bypass service as part of a successful tender for the Western Sydney Local Area Health District, in-touch service where we send our critical care nurses into the home to keep patients out of the emergency department.
So, today I want to address everyone who is at home already, on a ventilator with a tracheostomy or with a tracheostomy without ventilation, or on BIPAP or on CPAP ventilation without of tracheostomy, and they are at home with insufficient support. What do I mean by that?
We have many inquiries where we have families contact us and say, “Hey, I’m at home, ventilated, tracheostomy, or my family member is at home, or they are having a tracheostomy, are not ventilated or they are on BIPAP, or on CPAP ventilation, but it’s not working because we don’t have the right support, we have support workers, disability support workers coming to our homes. We’re going back to ICU all the time. There are gaps in the roster.” In short, it’s a big mess.
Going back in time, that’s how we actually got started in 2013. There was one particular client who bounced back into ICU all the time, was ventilated, tracheostomy at home, and was looked after by support workers, and of course, that didn’t work. That was our first client. We proved the concept within weeks that with Intensive Care at Home, this client never ever went back into ICU ever again. That’s pretty much what we’ve been doing for the last 10 years, sending our ICU and critical care nurses into the home, making sure our clients stay at home predictably. How do we do it? Well, we bring the intensive care into the home.
For anyone ventilated with the tracheostomy, that is an intensive care nursing skill. For anyone that is at home already and goes back into ICU on a ventilator with tracheostomy, they’re not going on to a hospital ward, they’re going back into intensive care where intensive care nurses and intensive care doctors are. It’s not any different in the community, do anything less than that and patients are at high risk of dying. As a matter of fact, many have died, and I’ll come to that in a minute.
So, how do we do it and how do we make sure it’s safe? Well, first of all, we are the only service in Australia, in 2024, that is accredited for Intensive Care at Home. There’s no other Intensive Care at Home nursing service in Australia that has achieved the same level of accreditation that we have. You can look that up on our accreditation and quality page that we are actually accredited for Intensive Care at Home nursing, which includes ventilation and tracheostomy. No other service can compete with that.
Next, we employ hundreds of years of intensive care nursing experience, and we bring that into the community. As a matter of fact, no other service brings as much experience and expertise into the community like we do. That also means we have built a lot of intellectual property to build the service, maintain the service, and deliver on our promises, and keeping our clients at home predictably who otherwise would be in intensive care.
Next, we advocate for our clients, and we have been advocating successfully for our clients for the last 10 years. So, what I mean by that is, when we first started out, all I knew was there is a need because I’ve been doing this type of work in Germany way back when and I knew the same need was here in Australia and as soon as I had the service accredited and I was doing marketing, the inquiries kept coming. Then, we started advocating for funding and we started advocating for funding successfully because at the end of the day, we are cutting the cost of an intensive care bed by 50%. Who would say no to that? To cutting the cost of an intensive care bed by 50%? And while simultaneously, freeing up the most sought-after bed in a hospital, which is the intensive care bed? It makes perfect sense, and it is common sense.
Once again, how does a support worker agency even advocate without having the specialist knowledge? They can’t and anyone who claims the opposite. Have a look also on our website at intensivecareathome.com, there’s a section “Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines,” and those Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines are evidence based. So, what do I mean by that?
The Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines are evidence based and are a result of over 30 years or nearly 30 years Intensive Care at Home nursing in Germany and over 10 years Intensive Care at Home nursing in Australia. The Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines, who are evidence based, say that only a critical care nurse with a minimum of two years critical care nursing experience is safe to look after ventilated and tracheostomy, adults and children at home. That’s it, nothing less than that; not a registered nurse without ICU experience, let alone a support worker that might have worked in a supermarket last week, with all respect, and now all of a sudden, it meant to do intensive care work. Why are we not having support workers in intensive care to do nursing work with critically ill patients if all of a sudden, some people think they can do that in the community? That is sheer and utter madness, and it is negligent.
Now, to back up what I’m saying here, I know of at least five, potentially six clients in the community, in the last 10 years that passed away because of negligence, because of funding bodies not wanting to fund a critical care nurse, and they were funding instead registered nurses or support worker, or they were funding nothing at all, leaving the work up to families. Like I said, at least 5, 6, potentially 7 clients have died in the community where I have evidence for, that medical emergencies happened, and support workers, registered nurses without ICU experience or family members simply could not manage the medical emergencies and their family members died in the home before ambulances could even arrive. That is negligence.
So, these are all the reasons why, for lack of a better term, it is the Wild West out there. If you want the quality provider and you want the right funding, please reach out to us here at intensivecareathome.com.
If you’re at home and it’s not working, you don’t have the support that you need, want, and deserve. So, that’s what’s happening here. So, if you want the services, your loved one and you as a family, need and deserve, you reach out to us at intensivecareathome.com. We’ve also learned that families have been living with many struggles with dysfunction because of lack of the right services when they have a loved one on a ventilator with a tracheostomy and they often think, “Well, that’s just as good as it can get. That’s just our lot and that’s just the best you can get.” That is not true, we have improved so many families, so many clients’ lives, that we can do the same for you. Just reach out to us, so we can share more about how we can help you to move to a better place in your life and in your loved one’s life, having a stable team, improving quality of life, having community access, avoiding hospital admissions and so forth.
Now, with Intensive Care at Home, our website again is intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send us an email to [email protected].
At the moment, with Intensive Care at Home, we are operating all around Australia. We are in all major capital cities as well as in regional and rural areas. We are a NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) approved service provider all around Australia. We are a TAC (Transport Accident Commission) approved service provider and WorkSafe approved service provider in Victoria, iCare in New South Wales, NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme) in Queensland, as well as the 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 private health funds. So, reach out to us if you need help, our website is intensivecareathome.com.
Like I mentioned, we’re also providing Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS Support Coordination if you need help with a NDIS Support Coordinator. But our NDIS Support Coordinator will also help you with the funding, with negotiating with the NDIS or with other funding bodies. You know that the advocacy that we do doesn’t stop just at the NDIS, we do advocacy with all other funding bodies as well. We also provide NDIS specialist nursing assessments, but again, we’re providing nursing assessments not only for the NDIS but also for other funding bodies.
If you are an NDIS Support Coordinator watching this and you’re looking for nursing care for your participants and you can resonate with what I’m saying here that some of your participants don’t have the level of care they need, and you need more funding and you don’t know how to advocate for nursing care, you don’t know what specialist assessments you need, please reach out to us. We’ve been there, we’ve done that. We can help you with all of that. You can also talk to our NDIS Support Coordinator. We are very happy to collaborate with you.
If you are a critical care nurse and you’re looking for a career change, we will also want to hear from you as well. If you have worked for a minimum of two years in critical care ICU, pediatric ICU, or ED, and you ideally have completed a postgraduate critical care qualification, we want to hear from you. We currently have jobs in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Albury, Wodonga, and Bendigo in Country Victoria, as well as in Warragul in Country Victoria, we want to hear from you.
We are looking for critical care nurses who want to complement our team, people who are team players, people who want regular work. We are not a nursing agency where people come and go. Our clients want regular team members on their rosters, and so do we. We want to build those relationships with you and our clients because we are priding ourselves in having a tailor-made approach and tailor-made solutions for our clients. The tailor-made solution includes regular staff for our clients.
If you are an intensive care specialist or ICU consultant, we are currently expanding our medical team. We want to hear from you as well.
If you are an intensive care specialist and you have bed blocks in your ICU, I also encourage you to reach out to us. We can help you eliminate your bed blocks but more importantly, we improve the quality of life and quality of end of life for some of your patients 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 help you eliminate bed blocks in ICU, pediatric ICU, respiratory wards, and ED.
If you’re watching this and you’re in the U.K. or in the U.S., and you need help, please reach out to us. We can help you there privately.
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 like my videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for Intensive Care at Home but also for families in intensive care. Click the like button, click the notification bell, share the video with your friends and families, and comment below what you want to see next, what questions and insights you have from this video.
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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.