ABSTRACT

The number of children requiring long-term home ventilation (HMV) has consistently increased over the last 25 years. Evidence-based clinical practice guidelines are developed for the safe hospital discharge and home management of children requiring chronic invasive ventilation.

Recent studies have focused on improving discharge processes without jeopardizing patient safety by means of establishing standardized discharge processes (multidisciplinary collaborative teams providing both primary and subspecialty care, case coordinators, quality improvement initiatives of safe tracheostomy practices, etc.), emphasizing caregiver education and consistency of care (training programmes including the use of simulation training, ongoing education of family and in-home professional caregivers in the outpatient setting, complex care centres, novel approaches such as electronic systems, telemedicine), and advocacy efforts for providing home nursing and durable medical equipment.

On the other hand, survey studies conducted in United States of America and European Union countries have assessed the structures and processes of care in place for these children and concluded that health services are not yet coping with this growing number of children and that rigorous evaluation of current programs and practices is needed in order to improve care quality. In the current review, we aim to establish best practices required for enhanced care to reduce morbidities in this vulnerable population in our country according to the recent published studies and guidelines.