The Extracorporeal Life Support Organization award highlights Providence Swedish's commitment to excellence and the continuous improvement of patient outcomes.
Swedish’s Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) Program has received a second, consecutive Gold Level Center of Excellence Award for excellence in life support from the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO), a non-profit consortium of healthcare institutions, researchers and industry partners that supports ECMO programs and serves as the world’s largest ECMO program registry.
The gold award is among the international organization’s highest honors. ELSO’s Center of Excellence designation recognizes outstanding performance levels among ECMO programs as well as demonstrate excellence in patient care and excellence in training for caregivers to promote an effective healing environment for patients, families and staff.
ECMO is a pump that takes over the work of both the heart and the lungs in patients experiencing critical heart and lung failure after a severe heart attack or lung infection (such as COVID). ECMO helps sustain a person’s life while the underlying heart or lung problems are corrected.
Swedish’s ECMO Program, located at the Cherry Hill Campus, is part of the John L. Locke, Jr. Advanced Cardiac Support Program at the Swedish Heart & Vascular Institute and was founded in 2015 with generous support from Swedish donors.
“Our donors and their commitment made Swedish’s ECMO Program possible,” says program director John Mignone, M.D.,Ph.D, Swedish’s Robert M. and Patricia Arnold Endowed Medical Director for Heart Failure. “Together we are striving to change how health care is delivered in Seattle. We are constantly focusing on innovation, improvement and timeliness.”
Swedish’s ECMO program is remarkable in its level of clinical expertise, dedication to patient care and program development, says ECMO Program Coordinator Erin Lomas, RN, MSN, who works on Swedish’s Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit. Erin's role includes educating and training ECMO-specialized nurses. Swedish’s dedicated ECMO specialists make the program a standout, she says.
“The ELSO Award for Excellence spotlights our commitment to high quality standards and continuous improvement of the patient experience and patient outcomes. Our ECLS program focuses on innovation and growth in ways that ensure excellence, which are reflected in our delivery of care,” says Erin. “Our accolades have supported the ECLS program in becoming a leader in our region.”
About Providence Swedish
Providence Swedish has served the Puget Sound region since the first Providence hospital opened in Seattle in 1877 and the first Swedish hospital opened in 1910. The two organizations affiliated in 2012 and today comprise the largest health care delivery system in Western Washington, with 22,000 caregivers, eight hospitals and nearly 250 clinics. A not-for-profit family of organizations, Providence Swedish provides more than $406 million in community benefit in the Puget Sound Region each year. The health system offers a comprehensive range of services and specialty and subspecialty care in a number of clinical areas, including cancer care, cardiovascular health, neurosciences, orthopedics, digestive health and women’s and children’s care.
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