Only 18 months after launching, Our Lady of the Lake’s ECMO program has touched lives across the community, delivering lifesaving support and advanced care when families have needed it most.
It also has already achieved a remarkable milestone: the Silver Path to Excellence Award from the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO).
This recognition represents the dedication, expertise and compassion that the ECMO team brings to Baton Rouge, giving local families renewed hope and access to advanced lifesaving care right where they need it most.
What is ECMO?
For patients facing the most severe forms of heart or lung failure, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, can be a lifeline. The technology works by temporarily taking over the function of the heart and lungs, allowing these vital organs to rest and heal.
David Hebert, ECMO program manager at Our Lady of the Lake, describes ECMO as a life-saving measure for patients when all other standard therapies have failed. It is used as a last resort, providing critical support in situations where every second counts.
“ECMO allows the heart and our lungs to not work nearly as hard as they normally do. That way it gives time for the body to recover,” Hebert explains. “ECMO does not fix anything, but it’s an adjunct therapy to allow the heart and lungs to recover from some an acute injury… the ideas is to just rest and heal itself.”
There are two types of ECMO treatments — veno-arterial (VA) ECMO for heart and lung support and veno-venous (VV) ECMO for lung support only. Our Lady of the Lake provides both, ensuring comprehensive care for patients with varying needs.
Filling a Critical Void in Louisiana
For more than a decade, bringing an ECMO program to Our Lady of the Lake was a goal. Its launch a year and a half ago filled a significant gap in care for central Louisiana. Before, patients in the Baton Rouge area facing catastrophic heart or lung failure had to be transported to New Orleans or Shreveport, the only other cities in the state with ECMO centers.
By establishing ECMO at Our Lady of the Lake, local families, like Lafayette mom Ashia Abraham, now have access to lifesaving services close to home and no longer need to travel to distant cities during critical moments.
The program also brought a unique capability to the region: mobile ECMO. Our Lady of the Lake is one of only three programs in Louisiana that can travel to another hospital, place a critically ill patient on ECMO, and safely transport them back, often stabilizing patients far more quickly than waiting for a hospital transfer. This crucial ability means valuable time is saved when every minute counts.
“Remote cannulation is crucial when time is the enemy,” Hebert says. “For the community, it creates a sense of pride and success that we’ve been able to launch this program, become successful and be able to reach out and save lives.”
The Path to Excellence
From its first day, the ECMO program was built on a foundation of excellence, following guidelines set by ELSO, an international consortium that establishes best practices for life support programs worldwide. This commitment to quality care laid the groundwork for their recent achievement.
The ECMO team was honored at a ceremony September 27 in Maryland with ELSO’s Silver Path to Excellence Award, a significant honor that Hebert compares to the Magnet Award for nursing. It recognizes programs that demonstrate outstanding processes, procedures and systems in patient care.
“It’s a huge accomplishment, especially for a new program. It’s very rare to hear of a new program within the first two or three years to get the Silver Award,” Hebert says with pride.
Earning this award involved a rigorous application process that examined every aspect of the program, from education and equipment to management and patient follow-up. Hebert credits the achievement to the unwavering support and commitment across the entire hospital.
“The success of this program is total support and collaboration with all of the different participants and support groups of this hospital,” he says.
Aiming Higher: The Future of the ECMO Program
Since its launch in May 2024, the program has treated 19 patients and received more than 100 referrals, a number that continues to grow as more people learn about the advanced care available close to home.
Looking ahead, the team at Our Lady of the Lake is committed to building on its early successes by refining their processes, continuing to innovate and maintaining an unwavering focus on patient safety. Hebert emphasizes that growing the program means continuously refining what’s already been built, with patient safety always at the forefront.
“It’s just continuing to grow, to expand what we have developed,” he says, “and continuing to place patient safety as our priority. I am blessed to have landed at OLOL with such a wonderful team.”
