Miracle Machine Makes Heroic Rescues — And Leaves Patients In Limbo

This article from Melissa Bailey of Kaiser Health News highlights some of the challenges we have with rapidly emerging technologies in healthcare. Part of the mission of ECMO Advantage has been to help institutions learn how to safely and responsibly utilize ECMO to provide the best possible care for their patients. Each institution has its own philosophies regarding what is best. We have had some client institutions that are very selective with the use of ECMO and maybe miss some opportunities to help a patient that did not go on ECMO. And some client institutions are very quick to place patients on ECMO in order to give every patient the greatest opportunity to benefit from ECMO even if they have very little reasonable chance of survival.

Is there a right way to approach this? How do you decide when to withhold or withdraw a potentially life-saving technology? Should it be up to the patient? Family? Individual Caregiver? Institution? Insurance? Government?

Having a clear understanding of what ECMO is, what it can do, and what it can’t do can be invaluable in the process of making those decisions.

Contact us and allow us to provide you with the ECMO Advantage!