Children’s of Alabama’s Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) program has again received the ELSO Award for Excellence, Gold Level, a prestigious international honor from the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization recognizing the highest standards in patient care, safety and quality improvement.

The award places Children’s of Alabama among an elite group of ECMO centers worldwide that meet or exceed rigorous benchmarks for patient outcomes, clinical quality, staff training and research according to a news release. Gold Level designation reflects sustained excellence and a demonstrated commitment to advancing extracorporeal life support through innovation and data-driven practices.

As one of the nation’s high-volume pediatric ECMO centers, Children’s of Alabama provides specialized support to more than 50 critically ill infants and children each year. Patients are treated across the hospital’s pediatric, neonatal and cardiac intensive care units. The hospital also operates a dedicated extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation program within the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, offering rapid, around-the-clock response for cardiac ECMO emergencies.

"Receiving the ELSO Award for Excellence is an extremely high honor for our ECMO program and a powerful validation of the extraordinary care our team delivers every single day,” Martha McBride, Director of Nursing, ECMO, said in the release. “I am incredibly proud to work alongside the physicians, primers, specialists, nurses, perfusionists, and support staff who pour their skill, compassion, and relentless commitment into every patient and family we serve. This recognition reflects teamwork, continuous improvement, and an unwavering focus on excellence in ECMO care while placing our program among the very best in the world. It reinforces our responsibility to continue setting the highest standard for quality, safety and outcomes.”

The release said that this recognition reflects the collaborative work of pediatric intensivists, ECMO specialists and primers, nurses, respiratory therapists, perfusionists, surgeons and other clinicians who care for some of the region’s most critically ill children. ECMO is a complex, resource-intensive therapy that temporarily supports heart and lung function, often serving as a lifesaving bridge to recovery or further treatment.

Children’s of Alabama launched its ECMO program in 1987 and became a member of ELSO in 1989. Since first earning the ELSO Award for Excellence in 2013, the program has maintained its standing through continual refinement of clinical protocols, expanded simulation-based training and active contributions to global ECMO research.