Adult ECMO Program

We are international leaders due to our high yearly volume of cases, in which we provide care to patients with highly complex conditions; our clinical results, which are significantly above the benchmark; and our cutting-edge scientific, innovation and teaching activity. These are our foundations:

Our figures

These figures highlight and support the quality of our programmes, as they are compared with ELSO, the largest ECMO patient registry in the world and the largest community of ECMO centres. ELSO is a non-profit international scientific organisation made up mainly of ECMO centres and experts in ECMO. Whose global mission is to optimise care with ECMO by creating guidelines, promoting research, coordinating and standardising training activities and keeping a worldwide registry of activity.

Team

Our expert multidisciplinary team creates a caring and supportive setting, combining advanced technology with a compassionate and caring approach, ensuring that each patient feels they are heard, cared for and valued. The team has specific training based on high-fidelity simulation and follows ELSO guidelines. This combination of medical and human excellence makes Vall d’Hebron a leader in the field of specialised care. The team of specialists creates a caring and supportive setting, combining advanced technology with a compassionate and caring approach, ensuring that each patient feels they are heard, cared for and valued.

Professional profiles of the ECMO program:

  • Intensive care physicians: Specialists in intensive care medicine, experts in critical patients and specifically trained in ECMO. They play a key role from start to finish, from cannulation to weaning, with a cross-cutting, multi-organ and integrated vision that provides a better interpretation of this complex clinical scenario.
     
  • Specialist ECMO nurses: Highly qualified critical care nurses trained in ECMO therapy, who play an essential role in our programme.
     
  • Assistant technicians: They work with the whole team to ensure safe, high quality care for patients with ECMO.
     
  • Cardiologists: Specialist experts in the cardio-haemodynamics field who play a key role in the provision of support to patients receiving VA ECMO due to heart dysfunction.
     
  • Heart surgeons: Expert surgeons in the field of heart surgery who participate in central cannulation, complicated peripheral cannulations and cardio-haemodynamic support during surgery.
     
  • Physiotherapists: They help maintain the patients’ mobility and muscle strength, prevent respiratory complications and train the respiratory muscles to facilitate weaning from the ECMO. They also foster early mobilisation, overall functional recovery and strength training to improve tolerance to exercise and minimise ICU-related sequelae.
     
  • Microbiologists: They play a key role in providing the right treatment for infectious diseases and controlling and preventing nosocomial infections.
     
  • Pharmacologists: They help adjust the pharmacological therapy appropriately, with this being key to clinical success.

ECMO simulator

Hybrids VITA, developed jointly with Medical Simulator, reproduces different clinical scenarios for training in how to prevent, diagnose and treat possible complications with ECMO, which is a highly complex technique.

The simulator helps train healthcare professionals who work with ECMO in their clinical practice, such as in intensive care medicine, cardiology, heart surgery, anaesthesiology, transplantation coordination and nursing, in both paediatric and adult settings.

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