Specialised service fills area of need

General practitioners have embraced the specialised services offered by Mater Mothers’ Hospitals Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit (EPAU), which began operation in October 2008.

In the eight months since the unit opened its doors to women experiencing problems in early pregnancy, its five-day- -week morning clinics have been consistently full and unit director Dr Michael Beckmann says as well as referring women to the service, GPs are utilising the service for general information purposes.

“The service has greatly improved the channels of communication between our two hospitals and GPs,” Dr Beckmann, Director of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Mater Mothers’ Hospitals, says. “It has made our response to early pregnancy problems a lot more streamlined and direct and it has provided general practitioners with a strong avenue for information and advice,” he explains.

“With our two nurse coordinators we have highly trained staff speaking directly to GPs to help identify what a woman who has presented to them experiencing early pregnancy problems should do next,” he says.

“Our two nurse coordinators offer a great skill mix. One works part-time at the EPAU and parttime as a bereavement support midwife at Mater, the other works part-time at the EPAU and part-time in our emergency department. Their experience in these roles means that they really complement each other and bring great depth to the EPAU.”

Roughly 15 per cent of pregnancies end in miscarriage and while services focusing on early pregnancy assessment are common in countries like the United Kingdom, in Australia adoption of this style of model for coordinated care is just beginning to take shape.

Dr Beckmann says Mater’s EPAU is firmly grounded in Mater’s ‘exceptional care’ philosophy.

“We strive to place an extra focus on supporting the whole person with this service,” Dr Beckmann explains. “The loss of a baby is always diffi cult and it has the potential to have a very significant impact on the life of a woman and her partner.”

“Our service seeks to address the individual needs women and their families have.”

Some women will have a more difficult time than others and the EPAU is currently developing a screening tool that will help identify those women requiring additional support in the three months following early miscarriage.

Amanda MacDonald, a midwife, and one of the Mater EPAU’s two nurse co-ordinators says the feedback received from women who have accessed the services provided by the unit has been very positive.

“The best response we can get is to hear that women feel supported and cared for when they are going through this traumatic time and that is how our patients are telling us they feel,” Ms MacDonald says.

The EPAU—how it works

Mater Mothers' Hospital EPAU team consists of two nurse coordinators, a medical practitioner and a sonographer. A triage system is used to provide the best clinical pathway, depending on whether the woman is suffering from bleeding or pain in early pregnancy. To be eligible for treatment at the EPAU a woman must present with: