Page 14 - 2016 Nursing Annual Report | Summa Health
P. 14
Exemplary Professional
Practice
Treatment offers patients
a chance at survival
When a patient comes to Summa Health suffering from extreme
respiratory distress and the outcome is dire, extracorporeal membrane
oxygenation, or ECMO, treatment gives them a chance to survive.
Summa Health introduced ECMO in 2015 and it has saved The VA ECMO treatment helped save the life of Shannon
dozens of lives. The ECMO machine is similar to the Sansom of Mogadore. The 40 year old was at home when
heart-lung by-pass machine used in open-heart surgery. she suffered a massive heart attack. EMS crews rushed
It pumps and oxygenates a patient’s blood outside the her to the Summa Health – Akron Campus Emergency
body, allowing the heart and lungs to rest. When you are Department where teams of doctors and nurses were
connected to ECMO, blood flows through tubing to an waiting.
artificial lung in the machine that adds oxygen and takes
out carbon dioxide; then the blood is warmed to body “She was taken to the Cath Lab and kept crashing,” said
temperature and pumped back into your body. Elizabeth Protain, BSN, RN, CCRN, Unit Director, The
Heart Lung Unit/CCU/ECMO Program Coordinator.
There are two types of ECMO. The VA ECMO is connected “They called in the cardiothoracic surgeon to find a way
to both a vein and an artery and is used when there are to give her time to rest and recover. She was put on ECMO
problems with both the heart and lungs. The VV ECMO is to help support her heart and lungs and bridge her into
connected to one or more veins, usually near the heart, surgery. Her story is truly an ECMO success.”
and is used when the problem is only in the lungs. It is the
more commonly used of the two at Summa Health. Doctors told Sansom’s family that she had a less than
1 percent chance of survival. But, she beat those
overwhelming odds with the help of incredible nursing
staff.
“She came in through the ED as a full arrest, so you have
nurses who stabilized her there. Then she went to the
cath lab and you have those procedure nurses who were
working diligently to keep her alive. When they called the
code, the clinical nurse specialists from critical care and
myself we went down and we helped support the process
when we knew she was going on ECMO, plus the OR
nurses,” said Protain. “But, it was those bedside nurses
when we got her into a room that took care of her 24/7.”
Protain said initially it took three of Sansom’s four
nurses to keep up with her blood products, medication
administration and management of her post-op bleeding.
Elizabeth Protain, BSN, RN, CCRN with the ECMO machine “I can remember saying we need to get her husband
and her children in here because she was in such critical
condition, but how do you see her in this state? We just
put blankets over everything with my hands underneath
just to get them in to see her.
14 Summa Health
