(Photo Provided with Release Courtesy of Allegheny Health Network)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Pittsburgh, PA) According to a release in Pittsburgh today from Allegheny Health Network (AHN), the AGH Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Patient Mobility program, which is a new program at AHN Allegheny General Hospital, demonstrates that getting patients up and moving around while receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support can dramatically improve health outcomes, leading to better survival rates and shorter hospital stays. This program was launched in 2022 by critical care and cardiovascular clinicians at flagship hospital of Allegheny Health Network and is currently designed so patients can get upright and walking short distances or moving in some other capacity, but so long as they are stable on a heart-lung bypass machine. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation is a type of heart-lung bypass therapy and patients that require it typically need bed rest that is extended, which is due to the severity of their illness and the invasive nature of the therapy itself.