Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s lifesaving ECMO program saw 75% more patients in fiscal year 2025 compared to fiscal year 2024, and the program has embarked on a major new education effort to support the growth.
ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, is a life-sustaining mechanical system that takes over for the hearts and lungs of critically ill patients, allowing them to rest and recover. It can be used to support patients with acute heart or lung failure until recovery or as a bridge to keep patients alive while they wait for a cardiothoracic transplant.
In the fiscal year ending in June 2025, VUMC treated 191 patients with ECMO, up from 109 patients in the fiscal year ending in June 2024.
“Part of that increase is because of our expanding advanced lung failure and advanced heart failure programs, expanding opportunities for transplant,” said Lynne Craig, BSN, RN, VUMC ECMO coordinator.
Craig said further growth of the program is expected as intensive care units grow with the opening of the Jim Ayers Tower over the next year, and the program is increasing education efforts in response.
About 500 registered nurses throughout the Vanderbilt Health enterprise received ECMO education in the fiscal year that just ended, Craig said. Additionally, about 45 physicians and advanced practice providers attended an in-person ECMO course in June, and another in-person program with similar enrollment is planned for October.
“Many content experts came together with a lot of hard work to make that happen,” Craig said.
ECMO is used for patients with profound refractory respiratory failure for multiple reasons. It is a specialized system not available at all medical centers, and VUMC has received the platinum-level award from the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) for its program, the highest honor possible.
“Over the last decade, ECMO at Vanderbilt has been transformed,” said Ashish Shah, MD, professor and chair of Cardiac Surgery.
“With dedicated institutional support, hard work and a focus on broad training, the extracorporeal life support (ECLS) service went from being a unique and uncertain procedure relegated to one ICU to the enterprise-wide, lifesaving service it is today,” added Shah, who holds the Alfred Blalock Directorship in Cardiac Surgery.
ECMO is available in both Vanderbilt University Hospital (VUH) and Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, which pioneered the program. VUH offers ECMO in the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit and the Medical Intensive Care Unit and will be expanding that to the Pulmonary Intensive Care Unit.
“Our ECMO footprint is expanding in tandem with our growing heart failure and advanced lung disease programs,” said Whitney Gannon, MSN, MS, associate director of the Adult ECMO Program.
Gannon noted that Vanderbilt’s number of heart transplants and lung transplants has increased dramatically in recent years, driving the need for more ECMO. Both the heart and lung transplant programs are among the largest in the world. Pulmonary hypertension and interstitial lung disease patients are also increasingly using ECMO.
“We’ve become a leading ECMO center internationally,” Gannon said. “Our reputation has really strengthened, and so we are getting more referrals for really all indications of ECMO.”
Craig said that reputation is also attracting and retaining providers with an interest in ECMO, who are interested in VUMC’s innovative approaches.
“Importantly, the quality of outcomes continues to far exceed the ELSO national averages despite this unprecedented growth,” said Matthew Bacchetta, MD, MBA, H. William Scott Jr. Professor of Surgery and professor of Cardiac Surgery, Thoracic Surgery and Biomedical Engineering, and director of the ECMO program. “We attribute the quality of our outcomes to these educational efforts, an ongoing ECMO fellowship, and the diverse and well-integrated multidisciplinary members of the ECMO service.”
