Healthcare professionals’ views on training, standards, and resources for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation: a cross-sectional survey
Abstract
Aim
To assess health care professionals’ knowledge and opinions regarding extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) use, training, standards, and resource availability.
Methods
This cross-sectional study employed an online self-administered survey to evaluate health care professionals’ knowledge and opinions concerning ECMO procedures. The survey consisted of multiple-choice and open-ended questions inquiring about demographics, ECMO practices, training and certification experiences, ECMO use during the COVID-19 pandemic, and obstacles to ECMO implementation.
Results
The study enrolled 89 health care professionals from 12 countries. The respondents were most frequently from Kazakhstan (67.4%), Turkey (5.6%), Croatia (5.6%), and Ukraine (5.6%). Notably, 61.8% of respondents supported ECMO procedures performed by certified specialists. The respondents believed that the main ECMO indications were respiratory failure (83.1%), cardiopulmonary failure (69.6%), heart and lung transplantation (64.1%), and cardiogenic shock (58.4%). Major obstacles to ECMO implementation were reported to be high costs (53.9%), inadequately qualified staff (52.8% for physicians, 41.6% for nurses), and restricted availability of ECMO devices (42.7%).
Conclusion
The findings emphasize the need for standardized training, wider availability of ECMO standards, and efforts to address resource-related barriers to ECMO access. Our results primarily reflect practices in Kazakhstan and should be interpreted in light of the study’s restricted geographical coverage.