Inside Philanthropy recently sat down with Helmsley Trustee Walter Panzirer to discuss the origin of our ECMO initiative and current cardiac portfolio.

The article details how our ECMO initiative began when Helmsley Trustee Walter Panzirer met with Dr. Demetris Yannopoulos, the visionary behind the first ECPR program in the United States, bringing ECMO to cardiac arrest patients. Since then, we’ve expanded our ECMO support to organizations in Montana and Nevada. Why?

“It became an equity issue” because of how little access rural communities have to the life-saving treatment, Panzirer said to Inside Philanthropy.

We believe that your zip code should never determine your health outcome. We believe that ECMO needs to be included in the standard of cardiac care, and has a future role in cardiac arrest response. It is essential to fund its expansion, both beyond the walls of a hospital, as we did with Dr. Yannopoulos and the ECPR program, and to build ECMO capacity at the hospitals where rural patients come to receive care.

Read more about our ECMO and cardiac initiatives in this feature from Inside Philanthropy, which you can read here with a subscription.