A grant for $3.2 million from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute will fund the development of a mobile Critical Care Recovery Program by IU Center for Aging Research.
According to an IU press release, two million of the five million Americans who are taken to intensive care units develop respiratory failure, which can cause long-term impairment both psychically and psychologically. The trial development will be lead by Dr. Babar A. Khan from the IU Center for Aging Research and Regenstrief Institute.
"Although there are certainly some community resources and rehabilitation services available to ICU survivors, these are fragmented and difficult for the post-ICU patient and family to access, typically making a meaningful recovery unattainable," Khan said in the press release.
The mobile CCRP is designed to reduce the risk of rehospitalization and to reassure patients and their families.
All the patients of the mobile program will be shadowed for 12 months. During the year a mobile care coordinator will be supported by a team made of an ICU physician, a geriatrician, a neuropsychologist, and an ICU symptom management nurse, and they will visit the Intensive Care Unit survivors on a biweekly basis.
The team will meet weekly to continuously update a personal recovery plan for the patient and the caregiver, according to the press release.
"When we talk about rehospitalization, we shouldn't forget how the patient and how the family feel about it," Dr. Khan said in the release. "Decreasing the likelihood of rehospitalization is not just about health care costs, it's about people and their lives."
Dominick Jean
