About Our Program
Our adult ECMO program is one of the largest, most experienced and innovative programs in the world. The Adult ECMO team has extensive experience in managing patients with respiratory failure, as well as cardiogenic shock.
One of the first three adult programs in the world to achieve Platinum status
We provide comprehensive management and offer the highest quality care for adult patients with:
- Severe Respiratory Failure
- Severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)
- Status asthmaticus
- Acute pulmonary embolism
- Severe pneumonia
- Select cases of pulmonary hypertensive crisis, post-surgical respiratory failure, and trauma circulatory support/heart transplantation
- Cardiogenic Shock
- Post-acute coronary syndrome management
- Acute myocarditis
- Refractory arrhythmia
- Valvular and advanced cardiomyopathies with cardiogenic shock
- Massive pulmonary embolism
- Right-sided heart failure
- Need for escalation of biventricular support
- Sepsis/stress-induced cardiomyopathy with cardiogenic shock as bridge to recovery or durable mechanical circulatory support/heart transplantation
Our Patient-Centered Model
Our ECMO program uses a patient-centered, disease-specific model for the delivery of this potentially life-saving therapy. Patients can be cannulated with ECMO anywhere inside of the hospital or at the patient’s external hospital bedside. ECMO for acute or acute-on-chronic respiratory failure is performed in our Medical ICU. Post-operative ECMO, bridge to VAD, transplant or recovery, and ECPR are performed in our Cardiothoracic ICU and Cardiac Care ICU. This ensures the immediate availability of relevant medical expertise based on the patient's underlying condition.
Innovation
Our program is at the cutting edge of research and new techniques in the field. One example involves the use of a miniature ECMO set-up to get selected patients out of bed and walking while on ECMO, sometimes without the use of the ventilator at all. This is typically used to bridge patients to lung transplantation. A recent configuration development decompresses the left ventricle via an upper-body configuration that allows for cardiac patients to ambulate to maintain physical fitness while recovering or bridging to LVAD.
Multidisciplinary Care
The Adult ECMO Program at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center provides state-of-the-art treatment. We feature expert clinicians from every relevant medical and surgical subspecialty. This includes expertise in all areas of pulmonary and cardiac medicine and cardiothoracic surgery.
Our multidisciplinary team includes critical care nurses, respiratory therapists, perfusionists, nurse-practitioners, critical care-trained pharmacists (PharmD), critical care physical and occupational therapists, nutritionists, speech therapists, social workers, care coordinators, palliative care, and staff from pastoral care.
Contact Us
If you are a physician, please contact us to have your patient transferred