4 Questions LTAC Administrators Should Ask Themselves
By Mike Hodge, Director Business Development, Alternate Care Solutions, Dräger
Often a patient’s healthcare journey doesn’t end at discharge from the hospital. Moreover, medically complex patients require long term acute care (LTAC) outside of the hospital setting. The COVID-19 pandemic has escalated this need in two ways: Hospitals that are moving patients with other conditions to LTACs to make room for COVID-19 patients, and others that have run out of room for COVID-19 patients and need LTACs to care for patients suffering both short-and long-term impacts of the virus[1].
Transitioning a critically ill patient from the intensive care unit (ICU) to a LTAC facility without impacting the patient’s health status is a considerable challenge[2]. Here are four questions that LTAC administrators should ask themselves when determining whether their facilities are equipped to meet the needs of higher acuity patients.
Citations
[1] How Can We Ramp Up Hospital Capacity To Handle The Surge Of COVID-19 Patients? Long-Term Acute Care Hospitals Can Play A Critical Role, Health Affairs Blog, April 13, 2020, https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20200410.606195/full/
[2] How-to Guide: Improving Transitions from the Hospital to Community Settings to Reduce Avoidable Rehospitalizations, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), http://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/Tools/HowtoGuideImprovingTransitionstoReduceAvoidableRehospitalizations.aspx
[3] Best Practices: Ventilator Weaning Protocols, American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC), July 11, 2019. https://www.aarc.org/nn19-ventilator-weaning-protocols/
[4] Ventilator Weaning and Spontaneous Breathing Trials; an Educational Review, Emergency, Spring 2016, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4893753/
[5] Transport of the Mechanically Ventilated, Critically Injured or Ill, Neonate, Child or Adult Patient, AARC, https://www.aarc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/statement-of-transport-mechanically-ventilated-critically-injured-ill.pdf