Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
It’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.
So my tip today is how to avoid going to LTAC from intensive care. So, we are currently working with a client that is seeing the hospital’s really playing guerilla tactics to get what they want, which is not in the best interest of a critically ill patient.
So the situation is as follows. My client’s mom is in ICU with a hemorrhagic stroke. She had a trach and now she’s slowly waking up. She’s getting slowly mobilized, and she is slowly being weaned off the ventilator very slowly.
The hospital wants her in LTAC, which is not appropriate for a critically ill patient because simply LTACs are not equipped to look after long-term ventilated patients with a tracheostomy whereas an ICU is equipped for that.
Now the hospital has not transparently informed the family and my client that when they do a trach, that they want to send their mom out to LTAC. That came as a big surprise. Again, it comes down to you doing your research upfront.
You need to do your research when you have a loved one in intensive care from day one because otherwise, the hospital will simply walk all over you. You don’t know what’s coming. You don’t know what you don’t know, which is your biggest challenge. You don’t know what to look for. You don’t know what questions to ask. You don’t know your rights and you don’t know how to manage doctors and nurses in intensive care.
So coming back to my client’s situation, though, so the client was told at five o’clock today that their mother is going to LTAC tonight and the family was obviously not consenting to that, which again comes back to a hospital policy about discharge. And the hospital policies about discharge, we need to look at them closely. Most likely it will say that you need to give a family ample time to think about it.
Give the family time to consent to it, give a family time to look at another place if that’s what they want. That’s number one. So you need to give consent according to hospital policies. And number two, you need to look at medical records. You need to look at medical records from day one. So, you know what’s happening medically.
If you don’t do your research, you’re lost. You can see it already. You know, most families come to us when it’s too late because they haven’t done their research. They crossed the hospitals blindly, and then things like that happen.
So you really need to be on the forefront from day one. You need to know your rights. You need to look at medical records. You need to ask for policies and procedures. Everything in our hospital is followed by policies and procedures, everything. And you need to ask for that to make sure that hospitals are following due process.
That is my quick tip for today and this is how you can avoid going from ICU to LTAC.
Like this video, comment down below what do you want to see next and subscribe to my YouTube channel for updates for families in intensive care.
If you have a loved one in intensive care, go to our website, intensivecarehotline.com, and call us on one of the numbers on the top of the website, or also below this YouTube video.
This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com and I’ll talk to you in a few days.