AIIMS project for home care

Bhubaneswar: All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhubaneswar, has started a rehabilitation project for patients, who are convalescing after being discharged from the intensive care unit (ICU), by training attendants/caretakers to look after them at home.
“The device that helps patients to breathe through a hole in the neck (tracheostomy) needs to stay for a long time. Through this rehabilitation project, we help the attendants to take care of patients at home,” said Alok Kumar Sahoo, associate professor of anaesthesiology and critical care department, AIIMS Bhubaneswar.
Team members of the AIIMS ICU Rehabilitation project have introduced key parameters and home follow-up for successful rehabilitation, official sources said.
“We train the attendants before discharging the patients. We verify whether there is electricity, space and other facilities to manage the patient after discharge,” said Sahoo. This project has been funded by the National Health Mission (NHM). Attendants can connect with doctors and nurses through the AIR app.
An event was conducted last month highlighting home rehabilitation of 200 patients over the last two years to increase awareness among various stakeholders to widen the reach of such projects. Ashutosh Biswas, executive director, AIIMS Bhubaneswar, had interacted directly with the patients and some of their families.