Children who experience cardiac arrest are one and a half times more likely to survive at a hospital capable of providing the life support system called ECMO, research suggests.

But the reason behind better outcomes may have less to do with being saved by the heart and lung support machine itself and more to do with the care team structure at hospitals capable of ECMO, suggests the findings in Resuscitation.

Michigan Medicine researchers analyzed a national cohort of 1,276 cardiac arrest hospitalizations for children and teens 18 and younger between 2016 and 2018.

Less than half of patients survived, with half of the survivors at ECMO-capable hospitals and nearly a third at non-ECMO hospitals.

But just 11 % of surviving patients at ECMO hospitals actually used ECMO – or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation – which provides temporary support after severe cardiac or respiratory failure.

“A hospital’s ECMO capability was associated with higher in-hospital survival among children suffering cardiac arrest, but the majority of these young patients did not require the use of ECMO support during their hospitalization,” said lead author Blythe Pollack, M.S.N., R.N., who provides pediatric critical care at University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.

“This leads us to believe the multi-disciplinary team structure and care delivery at ECMO capable hospitals benefit the treatment and recovery for this critically ill population.”

Authors theorize the complex and comprehensive coordination, communication and treatment approach required across specialties in order to support young patients on ECMO could carry over to benefit all children needing critical care.

“Supporting patients on ECMO requires continuous discipline to maintain strong relationships across multiple specialty teams in acute, high pressure, high stress situations,” said senior author Joseph Kohne, M.D., Mott pediatric critical care medicine physician and researcher.