IOWA CITY, Iowa — Editor's Note: The attached video originally aired on Oct. 18, 2023 and is about the new midwife program at the University of Iowa.
According to the University of Iowa's "Project Adam: Iowa Heartland," approximately 350,000 people pass away each year from sudden cardiac arrest in the United States, or roughly 1,000 people a day. However, a new program at the university's hospitals and clinics is aiming to bring assistance to those experiencing this health phenomenon.
The hospital launched a new eCPR program on Nov. 1 for patients where standard CPR and defibrillators (i.e. AEDS) haven't worked. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is applied emergently during eCPR, providing doctors with a new avenue for patients experiencing sudden cardiac arrest.
Patients are connected to a machine that acts like the heart and lungs to help circulate oxygen throughout the body, while also relieving the stress on the internal heart and lungs. Like receiving dialysis treatments, blood is drawn out of the body and sent into the ECMO machine where the carbon dioxide is removed and replaced with oxygen. Then the blood returns to the body.
ECMO can be done in numerous clinics but the emergent aspect of eCPR requires more advanced technology, which the University of Iowa states it has in its Cardiovascular Invasive Procedure Unit. eCPR has to be done within an hour of going into sudden cardiac arrest so due to these time and equipment restraints, the program is only available for those in Johnson County.
“This won’t be a viable option for every patient,” Jason Allen, a cardiologist for the U of I health system, said. “But for those patients first responders can get to our main campus within 30 minutes, this is another option that has shown great success in improving survival rates after cardiac arrest.”
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