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Updated: Aug 23, 2025

Point-of-Care Ultrasound for Peripheral Veno-Arterial Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Without Left Ventricular Venting
Published on: January 17, 2025
Selection criteria and triage in extracorporeal membrane oxygenation during coronavirus disease 2019
Pasquale Nardelli1,2, Anna Mara Scandroglio1, Maria Elena De Piero2
1Department of Cardiac Anesthesia and Intensive Care, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.
Insights
The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated adaptive hospital resource management, particularly for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). Flexible ECMO guidelines and frequent reassessment of healthcare capacity are crucial for effective patient triage during critical events.
Area of Science:
- Critical Care Medicine
- Public Health Policy
Background:
- The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) resource management.
- Advanced life support techniques, such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), faced unprecedented demand.
Approach:
- Implementing contingency capacity tiers for ECMO allocation during pandemics.
- Integrating regional healthcare coordination systems for resource saturation monitoring.
- Establishing a hub-and-spoke healthcare system for wider resource distribution.
Key Points:
- Global availability of ICU beds and ECMO machines varies significantly.
- Patient candidacy for ECMO requires consideration of acute disease, comorbidities, and quality of life post-recovery.
- Healthcare system capacity must be frequently reassessed and factored into ECMO indications.
Conclusions:
- Pandemic-era ECMO indications should be fluid and adaptable.
- Dynamic patient triage, considering both clinical need and system capacity, is essential.
- A flexible, coordinated approach to critical care resource management is vital for optimizing patient outcomes.
Purpose Of Review:
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic changed the way we had to approach hospital- and intensive care unit (ICU)-related resource management, especially for demanding techniques required for advanced support, including extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).
Recent Findings:
Availability of ICU beds and ECMO machines widely varies around the world. In critical conditions, such a global pandemic, the establishment of contingency capacity tiers might help in defining to which conditions and subjects ECMO can be offered. A frequent reassessment of the resource saturation, possibly integrated within a regional healthcare coordination system, may be of help to triage the patients who most likely will benefit from advanced techniques, especially when capacities are limited.
Summary:
Indications to ECMO during the pandemic should be fluid and may be adjusted over time. Candidacy of patients should follow the same prepandemic rules, taking into account the acute disease, the burden of any eventual comorbidity and the chances of a good quality of life after recovery; but the current capacity of healthcare system should also be considered, and frequently reassessed, possibly within a wide hub-and-spoke healthcare system.
Video Abstract:
http://links.lww.com/COCC/A43.
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