ECMO systems for Fiona Stanley Hospital Perth | ECLS procurement and support for Western Australia’s cardiac surgery and ECMO centre

Fiona Stanley Hospital (FSH) in Murdoch, Perth, is Western Australia's largest hospital and the state's principal cardiac surgery, cardiac transplantation, and ECMO centre. Opened in 2014 and operated by South Metropolitan Health Service, FSH manages the most complex cardiac and cardiothoracic cases in WA — including patients requiring venoarterial (VA) ECMO for cardiogenic shock, post-cardiotomy failure, and bridge-to-transplant support, as well as venovenous (VV) ECMO for severe respiratory failure. As the only hospital in Western Australia performing cardiac transplantation, FSH occupies a unique position in the state's critical care ecosystem: the endpoint for patients who have failed all other therapies.

Fiona Stanley Hospital and the WA ECMO service

Western Australia's ECMO service is geographically one of the most challenging in Australia. The state encompasses 2.6 million square kilometres, with a substantial proportion of the population living at significant distances from Perth. FSH's ECMO programme must therefore support not only its own high-acuity caseload but also coordinate retrieval of patients from regional WA hospitals — via RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Service) aeromedical and RAH/FSH retrieval — sometimes from locations thousands of kilometres away. ECMO equipment at FSH must be configured for this dual role: intensive in-hospital use and repeated aeromedical retrieval deployment.

WA-specific ECMO equipment requirements

For a centre like FSH, geographic isolation creates unique constraints on ECMO equipment selection:

• Reliability across Western Australia's extreme environments: WA's climate includes conditions from tropical north to arid interior — equipment must function reliably across temperature extremes encountered during retrieval transport
• Battery autonomy for long-haul aeromedical transport: Retrieval from remote WA sites can involve multi-hour flights — battery runtime requirements exceed those of metropolitan retrieval networks
• Local biomedical engineering support: With major equipment suppliers concentrated on the east coast, WA ECMO centres need a distributor with genuine in-country service capability, not a 3,000 km service response time
• Bridge-to-transplant haemocompatibility: As the only WA cardiac transplant centre, FSH manages extended bridge-to-transplant ECMO runs — requiring circuits with optimal haemocompatibility for prolonged support
• ARTG registration: WA Health procurement requires full TGA compliance across all ECMO system components

Lifemotion ECMO for Fiona Stanley Hospital

The Lifemotion ECMO system is designed for exactly the operational profile that FSH requires:

• Phosphorylcholine (PC) surface coating — applied to all blood-contacting surfaces including oxygenator hollow fibres and circuit tubing — minimises protein adsorption and platelet activation, supporting haemocompatibility during extended bridge-to-transplant ECMO runs
• Dual battery packs, approximately 120 minutes each — providing sufficient autonomy for aeromedical transport missions across WA's vast distances, with dual-pack design ensuring backup runtime if primary battery depletion occurs mid-transport
• Starmed transport compatibility — the Lifemotion system is compatible with the Starmed medical stretcher and transport frame system for integration into ambulance and aircraft retrieval configurations
• Three-layer pump redundancy — primary centrifugal pump, integrated backup drive, and manual hand crank — ensuring uninterrupted support across all failure scenarios, critical for an isolated ECMO programme managing complex cases without nearby backup centres
• Integrated console with touchscreen interface, guided priming, continuous monitoring, and alarm management in a single compact unit — reducing cognitive burden and setup time in emergency deployment
• All ARTG components listed: console (528964), oxygenator (528771), pump head (528772), circuit set (528773)

OHM Healthcare: national coverage including Western Australia

OHM Healthcare provides Lifemotion ECMO system support across all Australian states and territories, including Western Australia. As a national clinical engineering services company, OHM Healthcare ensures that WA ECMO programmes — including FSH — have access to equipment procurement support, ARTG documentation for WA Health tender processes, installation and commissioning, preventive maintenance, and emergency field service response. ISO 9001:2015 certified, OHM Healthcare maintains the quality management documentation expected by WA Health's biomedical engineering governance framework.

Supporting WA's isolated ECMO programme

For an ECMO programme operating at significant geographic distance from major east-coast equipment suppliers, the choice of distributor matters as much as the choice of equipment. OHM Healthcare's national service structure, local clinical engineering coordination, and maintained Australian consumable stock are designed to ensure that WA ECMO programmes do not face supply or service delays that would be unacceptable in the context of active patient ECMO runs.

To discuss the Lifemotion ECMO system for Fiona Stanley Hospital or any Western Australian ECMO programme — contact OHM Healthcare, exclusive ANZ distributor.

lifemotionecmo.com.au  |  ohmhealthcare.com.au

For ECMO programme directors, cardiac surgery teams, procurement officers and biomedical engineers. Educational only — clinical and procurement decisions require specialist input. OHM Healthcare is the exclusive ANZ distributor of the Lifemotion ECMO system; no clinical relationship with Fiona Stanley Hospital is implied or stated.