Lifesaving heart and lung rescue
Penn Medicine has unique expertise in providing care for life-threatening heart and lung failure. We use leading techniques and technology to bridge the gap between critical illness to recovery or transplant.
Penn Heart Rescue has treated thousands of people with severe heart conditions, including those who have had serious heart attacks, cardiac arrest, cardiogenic shock, acute pulmonary embolism, and aortic conditions. Our rapid referral program allows our specialists to provide prompt evaluations and expedite advanced therapies for the best possible outcomes. Evaluation and care are provided by specialists with a variety of expertise, including cardiologists, interventional cardiologists, cardiothoracic and vascular surgeons, pulmonary medicine specialists, cardiac and pulmonary imaging specialists, and others.
Penn Lung Rescue provides advanced therapies to people with severe but reversible respiratory failure. Because these patients are often too sick to be transported, our program is designed to be mobile, allowing our specialists to travel to them and begin treatment with ECMO. Once they’re stable, we transport them to our center. This gives our specialists time to address the cause of respiratory failure and create a treatment strategy.
ECMO as a bridge to a lung transplant is a keystone therapy at Penn. We’re also a leading transplant center for people who need ECMO support for COVID-related acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and for those with pulmonary embolism.