Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Dependent COVID19 Hospital Transfers

INTRODUCTION: The World Health Organization has recorded over 8 Million cases of COVID19 as of October 2020. Despite receiving appropriate lung protective ventilation and medical treatment, some of these patients develop refractory hypoxemia and acute respiratory distress syndrome . Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation has been recognized as a lifesaving therapy for patients with ARDS secondary to COVID19. There are few centers in the United States equipped with the necessary staff and the experience to take care of such critically ill patients. Some patients are too ill to be transferred with conventional mechanical ventilation, and they require interhospital transport while on ECMO. CASE REPORT: We have developed a highly specialized ECMO Deployment Team dedicated to the cannulation and transport of COVID19 patients while on venous-venous (VV) ECMO or venous-arterial (VA) ECMO. We use routine bedside ECMO cannulation via bilateral femoral vessels configuration at the outside hospital. The patient is stabilized and transported by air or ground to one of our affiliated hospitals.Here we present a series of five patients who were cannulated by our team at an outside institution and transported while on ECMO support to one of our three system hospitals. Patient ages ranged between 49-64 years old. Four patients required VV ECMO for severe hypoxemia secondary to COVID19 ARDS. One patient required VA ECMO due to viral myocarditis secondary to COVID19. Time on ECMO ranged from 9-33 days. Three of the five patients recovered successfully and were discharged home, rehab or LTAC. One patient is still currently on ECMO and one patient is deceased. There were no reported or documented transmission of COVID19 to the members of the ECMO deployment team. SUMMARY: The potential for survival of the critically ill due to COVID19 often demands a higher level of care. However, stable transport to an appropriate institution presents a limiting factor. Our method of a dedicated ECMO Deployment Team appears to provide favorable outcome for these patients.