News Releases

Wilmington, Del.— We are pleased to announce that Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children has received the Gold Level ELSO Award for Excellence in Life Support for 2019. Nemours previously received this award from the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) in 2016. The Excellence in Life Support Award recognizes those centers that demonstrate an exceptional commitment to evidence-based processes and quality measures, staff training and continuing education, patient satisfaction and ongoing clinical care.

The ELSO Award exemplifies Nemours’ extraordinary dedication to providing high quality, state-of-the-art care to our critically ill patients. It also demonstrates to the health care community an assurance of high quality standards, specialized equipment and supplies, defined patient protocols, and advanced education of all staff members.

Key Facts

• The ELSO Excellence in Life Support Award recognizes Extracorporeal Life Support (ECLS) programs worldwide that distinguish themselves by having processes, procedures and systems in place that promote excellence and exceptional care in providing extracorporeal membrane oxygenation to their patients. 

• ELSO’s goal is to recognize and honor ECLS programs that reach the highest level of performance, innovation, satisfaction and quality. A designated Center of Excellence has demonstrated extraordinary achievement in the following three categories:
  • Excellence in promoting the mission, activities, and vision of ELSO;
  • Excellence in patient care by using the highest quality measures, processes, and structures based upon evidence; and
  • Excellence in training, education, collaboration, and communication supporting ELSO guidelines that contributes to a healing environment for families, patients and staff.
• The ELSO Award of Excellence is recognized by the U.S. News & World Report and Parents magazine as one criterion for top institutions.

About Nemours Children’s Health System
Nemours is an internationally recognized children's health system that owns and operates the two free-standing children’s hospitals: Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del., and Nemours Children's Hospital in Orlando, Fla., along with outpatient facilities in five states, delivering pediatric primary, specialty and urgent care. Nemours also powers the world’s most-visited website for information on the health of children and teens, KidsHealth.org, and offers on-demand, online video patient visits through Nemours CareConnect. Nemours ReadingBrightstart.org is a program dedicated to preventing reading failure in young children, grounded in Nemours’ understanding that child health and learning are inextricably linked, and that reading level is a strong predictor of adult health.

Established as The Nemours Foundation through the legacy and philanthropy of Alfred I. duPont, Nemours provides pediatric clinical care, research, education, advocacy and prevention programs to families in the communities it serves.

About ELSO
The Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) is an international non-profit consortium of health care institutions who are dedicated to the development and evaluation of novel therapies for support of failing organ systems. Crucial is the promotion of a broad multidisciplinary collaboration. The primary mission of the Organization is to maintain a registry of, at least, use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation in active ELSO centers. As appropriate, registries of other novel forms of organ system support are within the purview of ELSO. Registry data is to be used to support clinical research, support regulatory agencies, and support individual ELSO centers. ELSO provides educational programs for active centers as well as for the broader medical and lay communities.