Memorial Regional Hospital Recognized for Capabilities and Outcomes of Ecmo Program

Memorial Regional Hospital has been recognized by Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) as a “Designated Gold Level Center of Excellence” for its Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) program. The Memorial Healthcare System facility is one of only four adult hospitals in Florida to earn the recognition from the international society and the only program south of Orlando. The Center of Excellence designation requires re-application every three years, with this being the second consecutive Gold award for Memorial.

ECMO is an advanced therapy that uses a machine to temporarily replace the function of the heart and lungs of critically-ill patients recovering from severe lung damage, cardiogenic shock or heart failure. Blood is pumped and oxygenated outside of the body, and then returned to the body, allowing the patient’s heart and/or lungs to rest.

Designated Centers of Excellence are experienced in-patient care providers with established policies, procedures, training, education and community leadership. Centers must incorporate highly developed quality initiatives and continuously review processes within their program. Outcome reviews must be demonstrated as an integral component of their organization.

“Our Memorial Cardiac & Vascular Institute teams are focused on providing patients the very best critical care services, integrating advanced life support equipment and patient care,” said I-wen Wang, MD, chief of Memorial Healthcare System’s Adult Heart Transplant & Mechanical Circulatory Support Program. “Being recognized as a gold level Center of Excellence at Memorial Regional reflects the dedication to advancing healthcare that we continuously strive to achieve daily.”

Memorial’s ECMO program is made up of a multi-disciplinary team of critical care, cardiac surgery, heart failure, and transplant surgery specialists who work together to support patients. It was the first provider in South Florida to offer mobile ECMO services, which provide safe hospital-to-hospital transfers of ECMO patients under the care and supervision of a specially-trained transport team.

ELSO is an international, nonprofit consortium of healthcare institutions, researchers, providers, and industry partners. It provides support to those delivering extracorporeal life support through continuing education, guidelines, original research, publications, and a comprehensive registry of ECMO patient data.