ECMO stands for Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, and it’s used when the heart or lungs need support after surgery or during a serious illness. Providence Swedish uses ECMO to sustain a person’s life while their heart or lung issue gets corrected. “We can support lungs,” said Erin Lomas, RN, cardiovascular intensive care unit clinical supervisor at Providence Swedish. “We can support failing hearts and hopefully get people back home to their families.” ECMO can support patients after heart attacks or in cases of severe pneumonia. It even has been used in cases of COVID-19. Swedish Providence was the first center in the U.S. to put a patient with COVID on ECMO support. “That first patient ended up coming off ECMO and was discharged from the hospital, which is very, very exciting,” Lomas said. “And we were able to offer that support for quite a few more patients after that.” Donations and support from the Swedish Foundation helped launch the ECMO program at Swedish. The hospital built a comprehensive team that included infectious disease, nephrology and nursing and sent three nurses for specialized training in ECMO. Providence Swedish has a high level of intensive/critical care with critical care physicians and advanced heart failure cardiologists working in the same clinical space. This has allowed more than 75 percent of patients to survive and go home from the hospital, which is above the national average (about 50 percent). The ECMO program at Providence Swedish recently received certification from DNV, a national healthcare certification and accreditation organization. Swedish’s program has also been recognized as a center of excellence with gold status by the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization. “Next steps for this program are to hopefully grow and expand so we can offer this service to more individuals in our community, and even outside our community from other locations around the state of Washington,” Lomas said. “And we can only really do that through teamwork and also through the continued support of the Swedish Foundation.” For more information, visit the Swedish website or contact the Providence Swedish Heart and Vascular Institute at 206-320-4100. Sponsored by Providence Swedish. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KING 5's New Day Northwest is Western Washington's only local daytime talk show. Watch it weekdays at 11 a.m. PST on KING 5 TV and streaming live on http://www.king5.com. #newdaynw 🢒 Follow New Day Northwest! 🢐 FACEBOOK 🢒 https://www.facebook.com/newdaynw TWITTER 🢒 https://twitter.com/newdaynw INSTAGRAM 🢒 https://www.instagram.com/newdaynw