40 J . R . Sleasman et al .: J Extra Corpor Technol 2023 , 55 , 39 – 43
Figure 1 . The international distribution of the ELSO Survey Respondents ( July – September 2020 ), and proportion of Pediatric and Adult centers reporting issues with supply of ECMO circuit disposables .
Figure
2 . Information clarity on the home page , product page , and request checkout page is rated ( out of 5 ) as 4.7 , 4.8 , and 4.4 , respectively .
components for patient care [ 6 – 8 ]. The ELSO Supplies Platform (
https :// Supplies . ELSO . org ) was developed to mitigate current and future supply shortage crises .
This novel Platform supports ELSO member centers in acquiring ECMO circuit components ( disposables ) when standard supply chains and regional sharing arrangements are exhausted . These pragmatic solutions most often occurred in emergency situations , but as the pandemic evolved in 2020 , these crises became more frequent . One problem became quite apparent : there was not an efficient system to facilitate product demand . The opportunity for access to disposables required for patient care by leveraging the product availability of the 962 ELSO centers worldwide was the motivation to form an efficient online supply sharing Platform .
The concept of a centralized supply-sharing Platform was raised early in the COVID-19 pandemic at a meeting of
Figure 3 . The average response ( out of 5 ) on the ease of use when registering for the platform , requesting equipment , and fulfilling requests are 4.7 , 4.5 , and 4.3 , respectively .
professionals at the Seminar of the American Academy of Cardiovascular Perfusion . The ELSO Executive Team and Board of Directors agreed to contribute resources and recruited researchers at Qatar University to build a user-friendly online platform to access .
ECMO disposables when usual supply chains have failed . The online Platform evolved to support the concept of swapping , donating , or borrowing ECMO disposables , starting with membrane oxygenators , since these were the rate-limiting component in ECMO support at the time . The ELSO Supplies team created the unique structure of the Platform , completing it within nine months from conceptual to functional prototype .
With the development of the ELSO Supplies Platform underway , members of the ELSO Steering Committee undertook a survey of member centers regarding perceptions of ECMO disposable limitations prior to and during the