Emergency care at the highest level
The emergency team at Klinikum Traunstein is now super fast with its own emergency vehicle in the event of heart and lung failure with a mobile heart-lung machine.
In the whole of south-eastern Bavaria, only the Traunstein Clinic has an ECMO center with a mobile team. ECMO stands for Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation and acts as an artificial heart-lung replacement. In the case of persistent cardiovascular arrest or severe respiratory failure, the rapid availability of ECMO therapy is often the only chance of survival. With this investment in the stationary and mobile capacities of the ECMO center, the Traustein Clinic can now provide emergency care in this area at the level of a university clinic. This was made possible by a grant of 320,000 euros from the Eva Mayr-Stihl Foundation.
The project had already started in the middle of last year with the selection and ordering of the equipment. Long delivery times for medical equipment and vehicles posed a small challenge. Nevertheless, the two additional heart-lung machines were put into operation in good time at the beginning of the fourth wave of the pandemic. The additional devices had become necessary due to the Covid events in order to be able to offer sufficient ECMO places for the short bridging of heart and lung function in the event of circulatory arrest as well as for longer deployments in the event of severe Covid courses.
Since March 25, a dedicated resuscitation vehicle has been available. This means that the emergency team at the Traunstein Clinic can be deployed in a few minutes and drive to the scene of the emergency with a mobile heart-lung machine in order to stabilize the patient in the event of cardiac arrest not responding to the usual resuscitation measures. "In this way, valuable minutes are gained and this not only protects the patient from dying, but also from serious neurological consequential damage," says Dr. Markus Barth, Senior Physician in Cardiology and Chief Helicopter Physician Christoph 14.
"The expansion of our stationary and mobile ECMO center is a real gain for our hospital network and for the entire region. We are very grateful to the Eva Mayr-Stihl Foundation for this special equipment, which is otherwise only available at university clinics and heart centers. Thanks to the funding, we can now offer emergency care at the highest level." Uwe Gretscher, CEO of the clinics in Southeast Bavaria.
