ECMO pumps blood out of the body, oxygenates it and returns it to the body
ECMO, the most aggressive form of life support available, pumps blood out of the body, oxygenates it and returns it to the body, keeping a person alive for days, weeks or months, even when their heart or lungs don’t work. In one recent case, a teaching hospital charged $4.2 million for a 60-day ECMO stay for a 19-year-old man with acute respiratory distress syndrome who was comatose the entire time and did not survive, according to Dr. Merrit Quarum, CEO and founder of WellRithms, a cost-containment company. Warraich and other experts say they are now concerned that new organ-donation rules may inadvertently spur hospitals to place more patients on ECMO: Under guidelines approved by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network last October, patients on ECMO jump to the front of the heart transplant waiting list.
Source: khn.org