St. Christopher's Hospital for Children Gains International Recognition for Life-Saving ECMO Treatment
St. Christopher's recently received the "Excellence in Life Support Award" from the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO). St. Christopher's also received this award back in 2009.
- Philadelphia, PA-NJ (1888PressRelease) September 24, 2014 - St. Christopher's Hospital for Children has received the "Excellence in Life Support Award" from the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO), an international consortium of centers offering Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) for support of failing organ systems in infants, children and adults. St. Christopher's received this award back in 2009.
The "Excellence in Life Support Award" recognizes those centers that demonstrate an exceptional commitment to evidence-based processes and quality measures, staff training and continuing education, patient satisfaction and ongoing clinical research. St. Christopher's Hospital for Children is one of the few centers to receive the award since its inception in 2006.
ECMO, in any facility, indicates a commitment to exceptional patient care, specialized equipment and supplies, defined patient protocols, advanced education of all staff members and high quality standards. ECMO is one of the most advanced forms of life support available to patients experiencing acute failure of the cardio-respiratory system. ECMO allows time for the patient's lungs or heart to heal by using a heart-lung machine to oxygenate and purify the blood outside the body over a period of time.
"We are dedicated to providing exceptional care to infants and children throughout the region and our ECMO program exemplifies this commitment," says Carolyn Jackson. "As one of the only hospitals in the area to provide ECMO, it is truly an honor to be receiving this award again."
St. Christopher's ECMO program has been in place since 2001. It is an intense, multidisciplinary program comprised of specialty nurses, profusionists, respiratory physicians, surgeons and neonatologists. While it is often used for infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), it is also used for patients in the Intensive Care and Cardiac Care units.
A testament to the strength of the program at St. Christopher's is that more than 90 percent of infants receiving ECMO services for respiratory support at the hospital survive. This is well above the 74 percent national survival rate.
The ECMO team has developed training programs and strategies for reaching performance excellence measures to assure the highest quality of ECMO services.
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