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Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.

I can’t tell you the number of inquiries we get every single day where families tell us, look my mom’s or my dad or my brother, my sister, my spouse who have I seen ICU is ventilated with a breathing tube. And the ICU team is telling them that they need to do a tracheostomy tomorrow, and then they need to send them to LTAC or long-term acute care. We get numerous of those inquiries every single day.

So, where’s my tip here? My tip is that you need to be two steps ahead of the Intensive Care team from day one when you’re in intensive care or when your loved one is in intensive care. The biggest challenge for families in intensive care simply is that you don’t know what you don’t know. And you don’t even know what questions you need to ask to get to the bottom of things and to be prepared for those worst-case scenarios.

If your loved one ends up with the tracheostomy tomorrow and they end up going to LTAC, it’s a disaster. LTAC’s are not equipped to look after ventilated patients with tracheostomy because they simply don’t have the skills and the experience. It takes an intensive care nurse. It takes intensive care doctors to look after patients on ventilation with tracheostomy.

So my tip for today is, you need to start doing research from day one when your loved one is in intensive care because you are completely under estimating this situation and you don’t know what’s to come unless you are prepared, unless you talk to professionals like ourselves at intensivecarehotline.com because we can map out the road for you and we can. Help you get the best care and treatment that’s appropriate for your loved one in intensive care.

So that’s my tip for today. This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com.