UF HEALTH SHANDS ECMO PROGRAM RECEIVES INTERNATIONAL AWARD
Award recognizes centers that demonstrate exceptional programs
UF Health Shands was recently honored by receiving the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization, or ELSO, Gold Level ELSO Award for Excellence in Life Support. The award recognizes the institution’s exceptional care in using extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, in its pediatric and adult programs.
ECMO involves circulating a portion of a person’s blood outside the body where it is oxygenated in an artificial lung before being returned to the body. This procedure has most commonly been used for babies and children with life-threatening conditions, such as respiratory or cardiac failure, that are unresponsive to other conventional therapies and treatments.
In other words, ECMO is an extremely valuable approach to helping these patients who may otherwise have no other options available to them. The therapy essentially allows the patient’s lungs and/or heart to rest, serving as a “time machine,” allowing the body to either heal or giving the ECMO team the ability to bridge to transplant.
“We are extremely honored to once again be recognized by ELSO for our ECMO program, which has positively impacted so many patients and their families,” said UF Health Shands ECMO Coordinator Andrew Jaudon, R.R.T.
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 care, according to ELSO.
The UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital began employing ECMO in 1991, primarily for neonatal patients. In 2015, UF Health Shands launched its adult ECMO program.
While the hospitals have already established a reputation for their quality ECMO program, the COVID-19 pandemic saw Jaudon and the ECMO team facing new challenges and more patients than ever before.
Jaudon said that his department anticipated an increased need for ECMO services as the pandemic began to take hold in the U.S. Thankfully, a bit of preparation ― including bolstering staffing and acquiring extra equipment ― allowed the team to be ready when COVID-19 patients started being admitted.
“You don’t really know what you’re made of until something like this happens, and then we found that we handled it pretty well,” Jaudon said. “We had ECMO running in many different units and saw a marked increase in patients needing ECMO that’s still continuing today.”
This successful strategy aligns with ELSO’s mission of recognizing the best ECMO programs in the country.
“The ELSO Awards’ goal is to recognize and honor ECLS programs who reach the highest level of performance, innovation, satisfaction and quality,” according to ELSO.
