gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: The development of suitable home ventilation equipment combined with outpatient intensive care often allows patients to return to the familiar home environment. This contributes significantly to the quality of life and the autonomy of the family. Medical and technological complications require expertise among professional and informal caregivers. The decision to consult a doctor or the ambulance lies with the caregivers and, if misjudged, can have significant consequences for the patient. Therefore, in emergencies a decision support system is needed to ensure patient safety and relief of the caregivers.

Method: Through the challenges described in the introduction, an in-depth analysis of the socio-technical context and incident reports in intensive care were carried out. A review of the literature and a context interview with an intensive care physician were conducted to highlight the weaknesses and potential risks of home ventilation.

Results: The analysis show that there is a need in the field of escalation detection (safety box) in case of medical emergencies and that a specialist should be involved through a tele-medical support. In addition, there is a need for training of nurses in a real environment like a simulation laboratory and an analysis of the ethical and legal implications. The safety-box consists of a rule engine that incorporates the data from the vital monitor device, the ventilation device and ambient room sensor that detect how close the caregivers is to the patient.

Discussion and Conclusion: In this project, a comprehensive safety and protection concept for the caregivers in home ventilation is developed. In this ongoing work, a safety box and the usability of telemedical support in the context of home ventilation will be evaluated [1]. The education training is developed for caregivers, which aims to better cope with the challenges in the home environment also stated in [2].

The following ones are members of MeSiB Research Group (German BMBF Project on Safety for Ventilated Patients in Intensive Home Care (MeSiB 16SV772xx)): Tim Binar (Triage, Germany), Ralf Eckert (oldntec, Germany), Thomas Frenken (oldntec, Germany), Marten Schmied (IQ medworks, Germany), Alexander Gerka (OFFIS, Germany), Klaus Graf (IQ medworks, Germany), Andreas Hein (OFFIS, Germany), Tanja Kröger (Pius, Germany), Christian Lüpkes (OFFIS, Germany), Christian Lins, Wenke Liedke (University Greifswald), Martin Langanke (University Greifswald)

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

The authors declare that a positive ethics committee vote has been obtained.