Wolfson Children’s Hospital’s ECMO Program Receives Award, Named Center of Excellence
Jacksonville, FL (PRWEB) July 26, 2013 -- The Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) has recognized Wolfson Children’s Hospital with the ELSO Award for Excellence in Life Support for its Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) Program. Wolfson Children’s ECMO Program is now a designated Center of Excellence, which recognizes hospitals that The Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) has recognized Wolfson Children’s have demonstrated extraordinary achievement in:
• Promoting the mission, activities, and vision of ELSO
• Patient care by using the highest quality measures, processes, and structures based upon evidence
• Training, education, collaboration, and communication supporting ELSO guidelines that contributes to a healing environment for families, patients and staff
Wolfson Children’s ECMO Program received this designation or a three-year period, which will start in September 2013 and will end in September 2016. Wolfson Children’s Hospital will be able to reapply for the award in 2016.
Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation is a long-term form of heart-lung bypass. It can provide support to the heart and/or the lungs for patients following surgery or those whose heart and/or lungs are weak due to a severe illness. Treatment starts by having a surgeon insert a catheter into at least one vein large vein in a child’s body. The catheter withdraws unoxygenated blood from the body and carries it to a pump. From there, the blood is pumped through a membrane oxygenator, which adds oxygen and removes carbon dioxide from the blood. The blood is then returned to the body by a catheter.
Wolfson Children’s uses ECMO to treat infants and children with conditions such as pulmonary hypertension, status asthmaticus, viral pneumonia, meningococcemia and viral endocarditis.
ECMO Nurse Manager Tammy Sleeper Herald, says, “This award is an affirmation of the hard work that the ECMO team and key support staff have done, and continue to do daily, to achieve our goal of getting critically ill infants and children home to their families. The overwhelming success of this is evident by the fact that all categories of patients we support with ECMO meet or exceed international standards for survival to discharge. There is no better day than the day a patient who has survived a critical illness requiring ECMO support gets discharged home with their family…that’s why I come to work every day.”
Neonatologist Mark Hudak, MD, medical director of Wolfson Children’s Hospital’s ECMO program, says, "Wolfson Children’s Hospital has a truly outstanding group of professionals who train continuously and come together on the relatively rare occasion when a critically ill child needs ECMO life support. Members of this team contributes heart and soul to every child they care for. As a result, many children who would not have survived without ECMO have rejoined their families in good health. I am privileged to be a part of this team and look forward to more wonderful successes in the future."
Vikki Mioduszewski, Wolfson Children's Hospital, http://www.wolfsonchildrens.org, 904-202-2886 904-202-5122, [email protected]
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