Beyond the Four Walls: The ECMO Transport Guidebook

This book is for the clinical care practitioner that understands moving critically ill patients on extracorporeal support is not simply “ECMO done elsewhere.” Transport changes physiology, compresses time, and removes margin. It exposes weaknesses in systems, teams, and assumptions that often remain hidden inside the ICU.This book reflects a career spent in bedside ECMO, interfacility transport, and simulation-based training, shaped as much by transports that went well as by those that nearly didn’t.It was not written to encourage programs to “add” ECMO transport. It assumes the opposite. The material here is intended for teams that already possess a mature transport foundation, a strong safety culture, and the operational discipline required to tolerate failure modes without catastrophe. ECMO transport should be an extension of an existing system, not a substitute for one.What follows is a practical distillation of experience, preparation, and lessons learned. It favors systems over heroics, humility over confidence, and training over improvisation. If the book accomplishes anything, the author hope it reinforces that success in ECMO transport is determined long before the patient is ever moved. Read more