Contact: Alice Warchol
Alice.Warchol@CHKD.org or (757) 668-9049
National Award Designates CHKD a Designated Gold Level Center of Excellence
NORFOLK, Va. – CHKD’s Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) program has earned the Gold Level ELSO Award for Excellence in Life Support for its exceptional lifesaving care. ECMO is an advanced form of life support for patients experiencing acute cardiac and, or, respiratory failure. CHKD is the only hospital in Hampton Roads with the ability to offer ECMO to pediatric patients. The award, given by the international nonprofit Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO), makes CHKD a Designated Gold Level Center of Excellence.
A highly specialized therapy, ECMO uses a pump to circulate blood from the patient’s body through an artificial lung – removing carbon dioxide, adding oxygen, and then returning it to the body. By taking over the work of the lungs, or both the heart and lungs, ECMO can support extremely ill children while other treatments help them recover from serious, but reversible, medical conditions. At CHKD, patients who benefit from this therapy range from newborns to teens with life-threatening respiratory or circulatory problems.
“We are honored to receive such a prestigious award for the critical care services and life support that our ECMO team provides,” said Christopher Denmark, CHKD’s ECMO manager.
To earn the ELSO award, CHKD’s ECMO program demonstrated extraordinary achievement in the following three categories:
- Excellence in promoting the mission, activities, and vision of ELSO;
- Excellence in patient care by using the highest quality measures, processes, and structures based upon evidence; and
- Excellence in training, education, collaboration, and communication supporting ELSO guidelines that contributes to a healing environment for families, patients, and staff.
The Gold ECMO designation was achieved under the guidance of the program’s former surgical director, Dr. Philip Smith. The program is currently overseen by ECMO Medical Director Dr. Meaghan Dominy and ECMO Surgical Director Dr. Franklin Margaron.
“We are fortunate to work with a multidisciplinary group to provide ECMO support to a range of patients, offering them a second chance at life,” Dominy said.
ELSO is an international non-profit consortium of healthcare centers and individuals who are dedicated to the development, evaluation, and improvement of ECMO and other innovative therapies for support of failing organ systems in the neonate, child, and adult. ELSO is made up of a broad multidisciplinary collaboration of physicians, nurses, perfusionists, respiratory therapists, technicians, researchers, and industry experts. Global chapters of ELSO provide education and expertise in ECMO delivery around the world.