ECMO systems for Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Sydney | ECLS procurement and support for NSW’s leading ECMO centre

Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPA) in Camperdown, Sydney, is one of Australia's flagship academic medical centres and New South Wales' foremost ECMO service. Operating within the Sydney Local Health District and affiliated with the University of Sydney, RPA provides adult extracorporeal life support across the full clinical spectrum — venovenous ECMO for severe respiratory failure, venoarterial ECMO for refractory cardiogenic shock and ECPR, and bridging support for patients awaiting cardiac transplantation. NSW is Australia's largest state by ECMO volume, with more than 186 ECMO admissions recorded annually across eight ECMO-capable ICUs — of which RPA serves as a principal hub.

RPA's role in the NSW ECMO network

The NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation (ACI) ECMO network coordinates extracorporeal life support across New South Wales, with RPA functioning as one of the state's primary ECMO referral centres. The NSW ECMO model distributes cases across eight ECMO-capable ICUs while relying on a small number of high-volume tertiary sites for complex case management, retrieval cannulation, and institutional governance. For RPA, this means managing not only its own admissions but supporting clinical decision-making and retrieval coordination for a broader NSW catchment.

What NSW's leading ECMO centre needs from ECMO equipment

ECMO equipment at a centre operating at RPA's level of complexity must satisfy a demanding set of clinical, logistical, and regulatory requirements:

• Clinical range: Support for adult VV, VA, and ECPR configurations without platform change — a single integrated system reduces staff retraining burden across a large multidisciplinary ECMO team
• Haemocompatibility: Advanced circuit surface technology — phosphorylcholine or equivalent biomimetic coatings — to reduce circuit-related thrombosis and haemolysis in prolonged runs typical of complex VA ECMO and bridge-to-transplant cases
• Retrieval readiness: Battery-operated, compact, and transport-compatible equipment enabling mobile cannulation and aeromedical ECMO transport across NSW's vast geography
• Regulatory status: TGA ARTG listing and full Australian regulatory documentation for hospital procurement compliance
• Local support: In-country biomedical engineering and clinical engineering support — not a remote offshore helpdesk — for time-critical equipment issues in a busy ECMO service

The Lifemotion ECMO system for NSW ECMO centres

The Lifemotion ECMO system — console (ARTG 528964), membrane oxygenator (ARTG 528771), centrifugal pump head (ARTG 528772), and circuit set (ARTG 528773) — is engineered for the clinical demands of Australia's highest-volume ECMO centres. For a centre like RPA, the platform offers:

• Three layers of pump redundancy — primary centrifugal pump, integrated backup drive, and manual hand crank — ensuring uninterrupted ECMO support through any single equipment failure
• Phosphorylcholine (PC) coating on oxygenator fibres and circuit tubing — a biomimetic surface modification that reduces protein adsorption and platelet activation, supporting haemocompatibility in both short-duration ECPR and extended VA or VV ECMO runs
• Dual internal battery packs with approximately 120 minutes of runtime each — enabling safe intra-hospital transport and compatibility with aeromedical retrieval environments
• Integrated console combining pump drive, flow monitoring, pressure monitoring, bubble detection, and temperature management in a single compact unit suitable for ICU bedside use and transport trolley mounting
• Four ARTG entries — all major system components listed on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods

OHM Healthcare: NSW clinical engineering support

OHM Healthcare maintains clinical engineering capability in New South Wales, providing field service, preventive maintenance, and emergency response for Lifemotion ECMO system customers across the state. As a TGA-compliant, ISO 9001:2015 certified biomedical engineering services company, OHM Healthcare supports the procurement, installation, commissioning, and ongoing maintenance of ECMO equipment at NSW health services — including all documentation required by NSW Health procurement processes.

Support services available to NSW ECMO centres include: equipment trial and evaluation coordination, ARTG documentation for procurement teams, structured clinical training coordination, scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, and emergency consumable supply for active ECMO programmes.

Supporting the NSW ECMO model of care

NSW Health's ECMO model of care describes a coordinated network structure, with defined roles for hub and spoke centres, retrieval protocols, and training requirements. Equipment decisions at NSW ECMO centres must support this network model — contributing to standardisation across participating sites and enabling reliable retrieval capability. Lifemotion ECMO's portable configuration — including its compatibility with the Starmed medical transport system for aircraft and ambulance use — is directly aligned with the demands of NSW's geographically distributed ECMO network.

To discuss the Lifemotion ECMO system for Royal Prince Alfred Hospital or any NSW ECMO programme — contact OHM Healthcare, exclusive ANZ distributor.

lifemotionecmo.com.au  |  ohmhealthcare.com.au

For ECMO programme directors, clinical leads, procurement teams 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 Royal Prince Alfred Hospital is implied or stated.