About FlashAlert on Twitter:
FlashAlert utilizes the free service Twitter to distribute emergency text messages. While you are welcome to register your cell phone text message address directly into the FlashAlert system, we recommend that you simply "follow" the FlashAlert account for Legacy Health by clicking on the link below and logging in to (or creating) your free Twitter account. Twitter sends messages out exceptionally fast thanks to arrangements they have made with the cell phone companies.
Click here to add Legacy Health to your Twitter account or create one.
@ourlegacyhealth
Media Opportunity October 12: Legacy Emanuel Medical Center
Legacy Emanuel’s Mobile ECMO Team is equipped for the flu season; unveils a dedicated oversized ambulance for transporting severely-ill flu patients
Media Opportunity:
11 a.m. Friday, October 12, 2018, At Legacy Emanuel near the Emergency Room entrance (N. Kerby Ave.). Legacy Emanuel’s dedicated Mobile ECMO Team AMR ambulance, physicians, former flu patient.
Interviews:
- Portland police officer, a married father of four, a former ECMO patient who just recovered from near-fatal flu complications. He didn’t get a flu shot.
- Dr. Joseph Deng, M.D., director of Legacy Emanuel ECMO Services and head of the Legacy Health Mobile ECMO Team.
- Eric Dodge, AMR Ambulance
Visuals:
- Ambulance (external/internal)
- Portable ECMO equipment
(Portland, OR) The important message is to get a flu shot. According to recently released data by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, last year’s flu season was the worst in decades. A flu shot can prevent infections and reduce the severity of flu complications or even death.
In preparation for the flu season, Legacy Emanuel Medical Center unveiled a dedicated AMR ambulance for the state’s only Mobile ECMO team. ECMO, or Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation, is a sophisticated life-saving procedure which takes over the oxygenation and heart function in patients with severe lung disease, cardiac disease or trauma. Legacy Emanuel is one of two hospitals in Oregon that has the ECMO service but the only one with a mobile team to pick up and transport patients. When a physician from another hospital calls for the Mobile ECMO Team, a patient is on the verge of dying.
The oversized AMR ambulance can hold nine medical personnel, specialized equipment and a portable ECMO machine to stabilize the patient. The Mobile ECMO Team, staffed with critical care physicians, nurses and other medical professionals, is available 24/7 to pick up severely ill patients suffering from flu complications whose only hope may be the life-saving ECMO procedure. Patients are transported back to Legacy Emanuel for inpatient ECMO treatment in the Neuro-Trauma Intensive Care Unit.
Last flu season, the Mobile ECMO Team picked up 22 patients with an 80% survival rate, 21% above the international average. They also travel by air and last year, flew 12 hours to Palmer, AK, to pick up a flu patient.
Legacy Health is Oregon’s only locally-owned nonprofit health-care organization with nearly 13,000 employees serving you where you work, live, and play. An integrated network of care providers from over 100 Legacy Medical Group primary care, urgent care and specialty care clinics, to seven community-based and nationally recognized hospitals including Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel, Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center, Legacy Meridian Park Medical Center, Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center, Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center, and Legacy Silverton Medical Center. Legacy provides a vigorous research program at its state-of-the-art Legacy Research Institute and extensive medical testing at Legacy Laboratory Services