New level of care available to critically ill patients at Blessing Hospital

Patients experiencing severe heart or respiratory failure, or both, have access to a new level of care at Blessing Hospital through Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation technology, or ECMO for short. 

ECMO is a type of advanced mechanical life support. The technology removes blood from the body, oxygenates and removes carbon dioxide from it, and then returns the blood back to the body. 

“ECMO can allow the heart and lungs time to rest by doing the work those organs normally do,” said John Rickelman, MD, intensivist and medical director of Blessing Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit. “It is not a treatment or cure, but it can prolong a patient’s life, allowing more time for the care team to assess and treat the cause of the patient’s heart or lung failure.”

 “ECMO differs from a patient being on a ventilator,” Dr. Rickelman continued. “A ventilator supports or controls only the act of breathing while ECMO acts as the lungs or heart when one or both are failing by providing for the oxygenation and cleansing of the blood.”

Investment earnings of the Blessing Foundation provided more than $122,000 toward the purchase of one of two ECMO units for the hospital. The Intensive Care and Cardiovascular Intensive Care units will each house a unit. In addition to a physician who is trained to connect the device to a patient, a team of 12 specially trained registered nurses from the two units will care for ECMO patients.

Hospitals in Springfield and Peoria, IL; St. Louis and Columbia, MO; and Iowa City, IA, have ECMO technology. Blessing is the only other hospital in the region with this technology, allowing its critically ill patients to remain close to home for their care.

 “ECMO is the highest form of life support offered,” said Rick Rettke, nurse manager, critical care units, Blessing Hospital. “People often hear about ECMO being offered at larger metropolitan hospitals. We are now able to provide this for our patients here. Blessing Hospital and its caregivers are committed to providing the absolute highest level of care to the patients we serve.”