Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation

What we do

Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) provides temporary life support for critically-ill patients with reversible respiratory and cardiac failure.

ECMO is a form of heart and lung support where blood is oxygenated by an artificial lung and is returned to the body by an external pump. ECMO may be initiated in the Emergency Department, operating theatre, cardiac catheter laboratory or the Intensive Care Unit. Further care is managed in the Intensive Care Unit by a team of specialists including intensivists, highly specialised nurses, surgeons, medical doctors and perfusion scientists.

Patients receiving ECMO require highly specialised care from medical and nursing teams. Medical and nursing ECMO specialists undertake extensive additional training program in addition to their standard ICU training.

The Royal Melbourne Hospital is a Tier 2 ECMO hospital within VECMOS, managing more than 20 cases a year, including patients received from other Victorian hospitals. The Victorian ECMO Service (VECMOS) is a networked statewide ECMO service. It was implemented in 2020 through the Victorian Department of Health and Safer Care Victoria.

Leadership of the ECMO service at the RMH ICU includes a medical lead, ECMO coordinators and the RMH ECMO Working Group.

We contribute high quality data collected by the ECMO coordinator and data team, with support from:

• Extracorporeal Life Support Organisation
• Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society
• The EXCEL Registry which is investigating long-term outcomes of patients who received ECMO