News

Joondalup nurse is Australia’s Nurse of the Year

May 08, 2016

A Joondalup Health Campus nurse has been named Nurse of the Year for her ground-breaking work reducing blood loss during surgery.

Patient Blood Management Clinical Nurse Manager Angie Monk was named Nurse of the Year at the recent 2016 HESTA Nursing Awards.

Angie was recognised for her leadership qualities and her work in developing an innovative Patient Blood Management (PBM) Program that improves outcomes and recovery for patients undergoing surgery involving significant blood loss. 

Angie was overcome with emotion when her name was read out and described how thankful she felt towards her colleagues around Perth in supporting her in her work over the years.

She described the PBM program as a new paradigm in medicine which focuses on treating patients pre-operatively to improve blood loss in surgery. 

“It has been shown to improve patient outcomes, reduce complications, improve recovery time and result in shorter length of stay in hospital – and has already significantly reduced the transfusion rate in orthopaedic surgery,” she said.

Angie was first Blood Management Consultant to be appointed to the WA private sector and her work has resulted in a 15 per cent reduction in the need for blood transfusions at JHC.

JHC has the only established and funded PBM program in the private sector in Western Australia.

“We have been at the forefront of PBM in the private sector in Western Australia since 2011, establishing a PBM program that has already significantly reduced the transfusion rate in orthopaedic surgery,” she said.   

“Undiagnosed preoperative anemia is common in elective surgical patients and is associated with increased complications and a greater likelihood of transfusion.” 

“Low iron levels commonly cause anaemia - this is why we need to check iron stores before surgery and replenish them so the patient is in optimum condition prior to surgery. Essentially we are helping the body be its own blood bank.”

“We know that the best and safest blood for patients is their own circulating blood, which makes PBM preferable to blood transfusions.”

JHC is also involved in the WA State PBM Collaborative and has been contributing data that shows a promising and significant trend in the reduction of red cells transfused to surgical patients who have undergone PBM screening.