Nearly 90% of COVID-19 patients who qualified for, but did not receive, ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) due to a shortage of resources during the height of the pandemic died in the hospital, despite being young with few other health issues, according to a study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

The Vanderbilt University Medical Center study, led by Whitney Gannon, MSN, director of Quality and Education for the Vanderbilt Extracorporeal Life Support Program (ECLS), analyzed the total number of patients referred for ECMO in one referral region between Jan. 1, 2021, and Aug. 31, 2021.