Home mechanical ventilation in Canada

What is it about?

Since there is no comprehensive Canadian data that describes the prevalence and provision of services for ventilator-assisted individuals at home. This study's aim was to produce national data that recognizes service providers, users of these services, types of services, criteria for initiation and monitoring, ventilator servicing arrangements, education, and barriers to the home transition of ventilated assisted individuals.

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Why is it important?

Our findings showed that ventilatory support in the community is well-established as most people are managed with non-invasive ventilation. We found variability in many important care aspects such as when and how to initiate and monitor ventilatory support, as well as caregiver education. When looking at the caregiver competency, our findings suggested that assessment and retraining were infrequent. Another key finding identified funding and caregiver availability as a barrier to in-home transition.