title: Weaning from mechanical ventilation followed at home with the aid of a telemedicine program.
abstract: We describe the use of telemedicine in support of weaning from invasive mechanical ventilation on a 63-year-old woman of at home by means of a telepneumology program (TPP). Under telephone assistance of a pulmonologist and a TPP nurse tutor, the pulsed arterial saturimetric (pSaT), heart rate (HR), breathing pattern tracing monitoring transmitted via a home telephone line and the aid of the caregiver, the patient was able to maintain diurnal spontaneous breathing after 24 spontaneous breathing trial (SBT) steps twice daily. The duration of each SBT period progressively increased starting from 30 minutes up to 8 hours. This case report shows that many patients at home on ventilators could possibly be weaned through the use of remote monitoring and call center response, with only family/caregivers on-site.
authors.affiliation: Divisione di Pneumologia, Fondazione Salvatore Maugeri, I.R.C.C.S., Istituto di Gussago/Lumezzane (Brescia) Italy. mvitacca@fsm.it
authors.forename: Michele
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vitacca
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Guerra
authors.forename: Giuliano
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Assoni
authors.forename: Piera
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pizzocaro
authors.forename: Lucia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Marchina
authors.forename: Simonetta
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Scalvini
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Balbi
mesh_terms: D017028:Caregivers; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate; D006699:Home Care Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000379:methods; D012119:Respiration; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015300:Ventilator Weaning / Q000379:methods*