World-first Heart Lung Machine integration with Perfusion Registry to improve patient outcomes
April 21, 2026
An Australian and New Zealand initiative to understand the impacts of the cardiopulmonary bypass procedure, used to support patients having cardiac surgery, will deliver critical information to support better outcomes for heart and lung surgery patients.
Cardiopulmonary bypass is a procedure with inherent risks, but for many years it was not well understood how the duration of cardiopulmonary bypass impacted on patient outcomes.
Amplifying the power of Perfusion Registry data
One of the longest-running clinical registries, the Australian and New Zealand Collaborative Perfusion Registry (ANZCPR), established in 2006, promotes the reporting and understanding of the effect of cardiopulmonary bypass on patient outcomes. The ANZCPR Group encourages evidence-based practices, quality assurance, quality improvement and research, utilising data collected in more than 40,000 procedures in ten hospitals throughout Australia and New Zealand – a very valuable data repository unique in its inclusion of electronic perfusion data.
Built on an MS Access platform, the ANZCPR technology needed updating. The ANZCPR Group collaborated with BioGrid to develop a funding proposal for the redevelopment of the perfusion registry and introduce automation. The solution had to be designed and agreed for inclusion in the grant funding application, so BioGrid worked closely with the ANZCPR Group on the specifications for the new database and the requirements for integration with the Heart Lung Machines used to support patients during surgery.
In July 2025, the ANZCPR Group secured funding from the Australian Federal Government (under the National Clinical Quality Registry Automation and Innovation Capacity Building grant opportunity) to redevelop the existing Australia and New Zealand Collaborative Perfusion Registry to enable, for the first time, a cloud-based solution incorporating automation between Heart Lung Machines and the ANZCPR database.
Tackling the challenge of collecting real-time data
The data had to be collected in real time, as the Heart Lung Machine was operating, and passed through to the registry for later analysis and reporting. It was a technical challenge that BioGrid was confident they could solve.
Use of the expanded data set, using real time data from Heart Lung Machines, will provide a world-first, and drive evidence-based perfusion practices that improve patient outcomes in cardiac surgery, support quality assurance monitoring and enable benchmarking of practices and impacts of cardiopulmonary bypass".
Professor Rob Baker
ANZCPR Chair
Ensuring a more sustainable resource for the Perfusion Registry participating sites
At the end of the project, the registry will be more sustainable, with significantly increased usability and build capacity for the future, making it easier for more sites to participate in providing data.
This is an exciting project for BioGrid. Our team has extensive experience working with clinical researchers to design databases and facilitate data integration, and we’re well equipped to address the unique challenge of interfacing the registry with Heart Lung Machines.
Maureen Turner
CEO of BioGrid Australia