ECMO

For COVID patients, ECMO is a last-ditch respiratory treatment in which only about half survive. Yet a new small study suggests many lives would still have been saved if there had been more machines.

In areas overwhelmed by COVID cases, hospitals must rely on traveling nurses to operate ICUs. Hospitals pay a premium for that temporary help, while also struggling to keep their staff nurses happy.

ECMO, the highest level of mechanical life support, functions as a temporary heart and lungs for some of COVID-19's sickest patients. But the waitlist is too long for many patients who need it.

A young woman in her 20s was healthy before the coronavirus struck her. After two months on a ventilator and ECMO device, her transplanted lungs are now working.