Childen's Hospital Boston 300 Longwood Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
(617) 355-6000
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Clinical Services:
ECMO Program
Children's Hospital Boston is home to one of the largest pediatric ECMO programs in the world. ECMO, which stands for Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, is an advanced technology that functions as a replacement for a critically ill child's heart and lungs. It is used to support a child who is awaiting surgery, or to give a child's vital organs time to recover from heart surgery or disease.

Children's ECMO Program provides services to critically ill children in the New England region, and to those who are referred from other states and internationally. It serves between 50 and 60 patients with severe respiratory or cardiac problems each year. Since its establishment in 1984, the ECMO Program has supported more than 900 children.

In the Spotlight
Image ECMO technology celebrates 20 years of saving lives
Joe Alonzo, 18, is one of Children's Hospital Boston's first patients whose life was saved by ECMO. Read his story and others in the article, "A cutting-edge technology grows up," about the 20th Anniversary of Children's ECMO program.
The ECMO Program is housed within the hospital's state-of-the-art Medical/Surgical Intensive Care Unit, where a multi-disciplinary team of Cardiac Intensive Care Unit physicians, nurses and specially trained respiratory therapists provide top-notch ECMO care to patients and support to their families.

Other sub-specialty physicians, such as those who specialize in pediatric infectious diseases, pulmonary disease and pediatric neurology also are readily available to help manage and monitor cardiac ECMO patients.

Unsurpassed Expertise
Throughout the twenty year history of the ECMO Program at Children's we have gained considerable expertise, minimized complications and increased its success rate for survival to 60 percent, higher than the national average of around 40 percent.
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Related topics:
Respiratory System in Babies
Respiratory System: Anatomy
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