An overview of chronic kidney disease in Australia, 2009

This report explains what chronic kidney disease is and describes its extent and patterns in the Australian community. Chronic kidney disease contributed to nearly 10% of all deaths in Australia in 2006 and over 1.1 million hospitalisations in 2006-07. Risk factors for chronic kidney disease are highly prevalent in Australia and the number of Australians at risk is increasing. Indigenous Australians in particular are at high risk.

The report, An overview of chronic kidney disease in Australia, 2009, shows that more and more Australians are having dialysis or transplants for the disease's most severe form, end stage kidney disease, for which diabetes is a leading cause. Between 2000 and 2007, the rate of people receiving dialysis and kidney transplants for the treatment of end-stage kidney disease went up by 26%. Over the same period, the number of new cases of end-stage kidney disease attributed to diabetes increased by over 65% in people 55 years and older.

National Hand Hygiene Program Aims To Halve Hospital Superbug Infections

A new world-first national hand hygiene program is being rolled out across Australian hospitals in a bid to halve the rate of antibiotic-resistant ‘superbug’ patient infections.The National Hand Hygiene Initiative is based on groundbreaking Australian research that shows using alcohol-based hand rub is the single most effective intervention in controlling Staphylococcus aureus blood stream infections (SAB), including the Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) or ‘golden staph’ disease. It is a step-by-step program to improve hand hygiene in hospitals and other health services and to monitor hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers. If healthcare workers use alcohol-based hand rub before and after contact with patients in the prescribed way, the rate of Staphylococcus aureus infections is expected to halve. The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care has instigated, and is funding, the Initiative.
The National Hand Hygiene Initiative began in early May, to coincide with the World Health Organization’s Save Lives: Clean your Hands day. The National Hand Hygiene Newsletter can be found here.

10 of the best research projects 2008

Australia has a proud history of producing groundbreaking health and medical research. This booklet, 10 of the best research projects 2008, showcases a selection of current projects and introduces some of the researchers who are continuing that tradition. Work on stem cells, diabetes, cancer, dental health and obesity in children are some of the research projects showcased here. Others include helping heal burns, making old wounds disappear, easing osteoarthritis and tackling male reproductive health. Together, these 10 represent the hundreds of highly successful international-standard projects the NHMRC funds each year.

SBS’s Insight - The relationship between pharmaceutical companies and doctors

The Insight program on SBS this week focuses on the relationship between pharmaceutical companies and doctors. Invited guests on the program include Dr Ken Harvey (activist and academic); Mr Will de Laat (Chairman of Medicines Australia); and Professor Garry Jennings, from the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute.
Here is the link to the program if you would like any further information. The program is also repeated on Fridays at 1.30pm and Mondays at 3.30pm.

Don't Turn a Night out into a Nightmare

*Four Australians under 25 die due to alcohol related injuries in an average week.
*On average, one in four hospitalisations of people aged 15-24 happens because of alcohol.
*Seventy Australians under 25 will be hospitalised due to alcohol-caused assault in an average week.
*One in two Australians aged 15-17 who get drunk will do something they regret.
The National Campaign with the theme "Don't turn a night out into a nightmare" has a number of resources for parents, over 18's and under 18's. The campaign is one part of the Government’s National Binge Drinking Strategy.

MJA Indigenous Issue

The Medical Journal of Australia published its annual Indigenous Health issue on 18 May 2009. The issue has sections Mind the Gap, Prevention and Promotion, Communication, Culture and Health, and Capacity to Care. Other MJA articles on Indigenous health since 1998 are listed on the MJAs Articles on Aboriginal health page.If you have trouble accessing the articles online, contact your Librarian.

Jean Hailes Foundation

The Jean Hailes Foundation for Women's Health is a not-for-profit organisation providing important services for women from adolescence to mid-life and beyond. It gives a unique response to the needs of women through excellence in research, community and professional education and clinical care. The latest research findings are translated into practical health and lifestyle approaches for women and their health professionals. Established in Victoria in 1992, it is now regarded throughout Australia as a leader in women's healthcare. Check out their latest Magazine "Feeling well from the inside out."

Youthbeyondblue mental health website launched

beyondblue: the national depression initiative has launched a new Youthbeyondblue website aimed at raising awareness of the signs and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and associated drug and alcohol problems among young people – and where to get help.
The website includes a wide range of new fact sheets on depression and anxiety-related topics, including how to help a friend, effective treatments, alcohol and depression, cannabis use, bullying, and eating disorders. All fact sheets can be downloaded or ordered via the website or by calling the beyondblue info line 1300 22 4636 / 1300 bb info.
The campaign aims to encourage family, friends, workmates etc. of the person who may be experiencing depression/anxiety to:
*look for the signs of depression
*listen to friends’ experiences
*talk about what’s going on
*seek help together.
According to beyondblue an estimated one in five adolescents experience a diagnosable depressive disorder by age 18. Around 6 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds (one in 16) have depression and 15 per cent (one in six) have anxiety.
Research has shown that “if depression or other mental disorders are recognised and treated early, this may increase the chances of a better long-term outcome, however, most young people with depression or a common anxiety disorder report delays of five to 15 years before they receive treatment and care.”

National Drugs Campaign

The National Drugs Campaign is part of the National Drug Strategy 2004-2009 and specifically aims to reduce young Australians’ motivation to use illicit drugs by increasing their knowledge about the potential negative consequences of drug use.The next phase of the National Drugs Campaign will focus on Illicit Drug Use -Targeting Young Methamphetamine Users. The initiative aims to contribute to a reduction in the uptake of methamphetamines and other illicit drugs among young Australians, by raising awareness of the harms associated with illegal drug use and encouraging and supporting decisions not to use.

Taking Pressure off Canberra Hospital’s Emergency Department

The Rudd Government today announced $10 million to establish a ‘Walk-in Centre’ at The Canberra Hospital, to help take pressure off its busy emergency department. This funding will mean development of a new Nurse-led Walk-in Centre at The Canberra Hospital will begin in July 2009 and be operational in June 2010. From June 2010, more minor cases will be able to be treated at the Walk-in Centre – helping to take pressure off the emergency department and allowing staff to concentrate on more serious and life-threatening cases. The Canberra Hospital’s emergency department sees approximately 53,000 patients a year – approximately 40 per cent of them with minor ailments such as coughs and colds, minor cuts and wounds, and muscle strains and sprains. The new clinic will be operational 16 hours per day, seven days a week. It is estimated that it will provide up to 30,000 services annually.

Elsevier announces Free-access Swine Flu Site

The Lancet has partnered with over 40 Elsevier published journals and 11 learned societies to launch a new H1N1 Flu Resource Centre for healthcare professionals at TheLancet.com . Developed by The Lancet editors, this new online information clearinghouse aggregates infectious disease and public health information from across Elsevier’s spectrum of content.

NCAHS Library Clippings Survey

Check out the blog homepage and take a few minutes to complete our User Survey. We rely on your comments and feedback. Thankyou.

Dementia Education Online

Would you like to develop contemporary knowledge and skills related to the care of people living with dementia? If so, you will be interested in a new set of freely available and fully online dementia education resources designed by leading academics who are experts in dementia care and members of the Eastern Australia Dementia Training and Study Centre (EADTSC). These resources are designed to provide students and staff studying or working in multi-disciplinary areas of health with a flexible opportunity to improve their knowledge and skills in working with people who have dementia and their family carers.

Reposted from GWAHS Library Blog

Report of the inquiry into the management and operations of the NSW Ambulance Service

There are 45 recommendations in the report related to culture and management, bullying and harassment , suicide, staffing , pay and award conditions , chief executive and legislation. The 25 page report by the Inquiry was initiated by ambulance officers concerned about the operation of the Ambulance Service including recruitment and occupational health and safety issues.

Australian Government 2009-10 Health and Ageing Budget

This page links you to the Health Budget, Ageing Budget and Sport Budget for 2009-2010 along with Media Releases, Budget at a Glance, the Budget Kit and Portfolio Statements.

Paediatric Pain Profile

The Paediatric Pain Profile (PPP) was developed by researchers at the Royal College of Nursing Institute, Oxford and the Institute of Child Health, London. It is a behaviour rating scale for assessing pain in children with severe physical and learning impairments. Children can experience difficulties in communicating their pain and it can go unrecognised and untreated. The pain assessment scale was developed specifically for children to help parents and health care professionals to distinguish which behaviours indicate pain and which pain relieving treatments to follow. The PPP tool is available for download as a PDF document.

2008 Summary Report on Adult Health

This summary report presents the first results from the 2008 New South Wales Population Health Survey and compares those results with previous years. The summary report presents information on health behaviours including: risk-alcohol drinking, high risk-alcohol drinking, influenza immunisation, pneumococcal immunisation, injury prevention (smoke alarms), adequate fruit intake, adequate vegetable intake, 3 or more serves of vegetables, consumption of lower fat or skim milk, adequate physical activity, current smoking, and smoke-free households. This is followed by a chapter on health status including: self-rated health, current asthma, diabetes or high blood glucose, mental health (psychological distress), oral health (all natural teeth missing), overweight and obesity, and obesity. Next there is a chapter on health services including: difficulties getting health care, emergency department care rating, hospital care rating, and public dental care rating. Finally, there is a chapter on social capital.

Mental Health and Primary Care

The World Health Organisation has published a New joint WHO/Wonca report 'Integrating mental health into primary care - a global perspective'. When clearly conceptualized, a mental health policy can co-ordinate essential services and activities to ensure that treatment and care is delivered to those in need while at the same time preventing fragmentation and inefficiencies in the health system.

There are also a number of fact sheets on the download page.

How can we improve waiting time for elective surgery in Australian public hospitals?

This paper presents preliminary results from a study on waiting time for elective care in Australian public hospitals. It uses available data published in Australia to test the hypotheses that public beds and hospital staffing (specialist surgeons and enrolled nurses) influence waiting time for elective surgery in Australian public hospitals. We extracted data from the National Elective Surgery Waiting Times Data Collection (NESWTDC) and analyse waiting times for 8 specialty surgeries in Australian public hospitals. Hospital beds, nurses and specialist surgeons are used as proxies for the endogeneity of waiting times in a multiple regression analysis.Our results show that available hospital beds negatively influence waiting times ( 0.0041 2 b = − in Model 1). Interestingly, the number of nurses ( 0.0024 1 b = in Model 1) and specialist surgeons ( 0.07884 1 b = in Model 2) positively influence waiting times. We conclude that physical resources such as available hospital beds are significant; to improve waiting times, hospitals should be adequately funded. Written by Cindy Merehau Mervin and Sukhan Jackson.

Thanks to healthblog@CSU for this post.

Pathology websites

The Monash Medical Centre Library has shared a number of good Pathlogy sites below:
1. The Internet Pathology Laboratory for Medical Education, University of Utah. This popular web resource includes over 1900 images along with text, tutorials, laboratory exercises, and examination items for self-assessment that demonstrate gross and microscopic pathologic findings associated with human disease conditions.
2. The Urbana Atlas of Pathology, University of Illinois. Volume 1 - Overview of General Pathology and Volume 2 - Cardiovascular Pathology
3. Ed Uthman's Pathology Images
4. Pathweb, the virtual Pathology Museum, is sponsored by the Virtual Pathology Facility of the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Department of the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.

Australia and New Zealand Health Policy

Some of the articles in Australia and New Zealand Health Policy are listed below and are all available online via open access.
* Issues facing the future health care workforce
* Treatment costs and priority setting in health care
* Educating the public health workforce
There is also a section linking to the most popular articles in the last 30 days!

In our own backyard: urban health inequities and Aboriginal experiences of neighbourhood life, social capital and racism

The latest Australian Indigenous Health Bulletin lists a number of new reports in the April - June issue. 'In Our Own Backyard' looks at the Adelaide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health (AATSIH) study and aims to contribute to filling the gap in literature and knowledge about the health and everyday life experience of urban Indigenous peoples. Take a look at the Bulletin website to see all the new articles.

After Job Loss People Report More Health Issues

Losing a job can lead not just to financial hardships but to health problems as well, including high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, heart attack and stroke, new research has found.
"In today's economy, job loss can happen to anybody," Kate Strully, who conducted the research as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health, said in a news release from the foundation. "We need to be aware of the health consequences of losing our jobs and do what we can to alleviate the negative effects." The study appears in the May 8 issue of Demography.

e-Rural online

Welcome to a jammed packed edition of e-Rural. Here are some of the topics covered in this week’s edition.
· Forget swine flu: dengue is spreading
· Swine flu cases top 1000 worldwide, warnings of second wave: WHO
· Australia facing 'dementia avalanche'
· Mental illness soars as global crisis hits
· NT intervention 'causing racism'
The Rural Nursing and Midwifery Faculty also offers an online training program to assist rural nurses and midwives in increasing their IT practice skills. It is a nominal fee-for-service training program which participants will be able to complete at work and/or home.
Thanks to Jackie Poyser, Rural Nursing and Midwifery Faculty, Project Officer, Royal College of Nursing, Australia (RCNA)

NHS Evidence

NHS Evidence went live on 30 April 2009. The principle aim of the NHS Evidence service is to provide easy access to a comprehensive evidence base for everyone in health and social care who takes decisions about treatments or the use of resources – including clinicians, public health professionals, commissioners and service managers – thus improving health and patient care.
NHS Evidence provides over 30 specialist collections which have been commissioned to cover a wide range of common medical conditions and health populations. The purpose of the collections is to filter the huge quantity of published research to ensure that clinicians and managers find only the best available evidence in each specialty. Most of the collections are condition-focused, some cover patient groups, and a further set focus on aspects of health services.

New Clinical Guidelines on Glaucoma

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the National Clinical Guideline Centre has published guidance to improve the diagnosis and management of chronic open angle glaucoma (COAG) and ocular hypertension (OHT). It sets out how best to diagnose COAG, how people with COAG, OHT or at risk of COAG should be monitored, and which treatments should be considered. View the guideline here.
More newly released NICE guidance include:
NICE issues guidance to help assess and treat children with gastroenteritis
NICE appraisal of rivaroxaban for the prevention of venous thromboembolism after surgery

Rx for Change

Rx for Change is a publicly accessible database providing reliable, up-to-date and evidence-based information about the effectiveness of strategies and programmes to improve drug prescribing and use. The database has summaries of key findings from systematic reviews that evaluate the effects of strategies targeting professionals, the organisation of health care, and consumers. The database was developed by Canadian Optimal Medication and Prescribing and Utilization Service (COMPUS), in collaboration with the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care (EPOC) and the Cochrane Consumers and Communication Review Group.

ARROW Discovery Service

The ARROW Discovery Service provided by the National Library of Australia, allows you to search 278,412 Australian research outputs, including theses; preprints; postprints; journal articles; book chapters; music recordings and pictures, searching simultaneously across the contents of Australian university research repositories. The list of currently participating universities, and the number of outputs currently in each repository, is listed at the left of the home page. To view the most frequently accessed research items, and most popular creators, visit the Statistics page. Or to view the contents of an institution’s repository listed as a tag cloud, visit the Tag cloud page.

Currently, more than half of Australian universities have public research repositories, which can be simultaneously searched through this site. While the specific open access policies will vary between universities, these repositories offer a vehicle for researchers to make their work publicly available. Researchers deposit a digital copy of their work, along with some descriptive information, into the repository. Most of the items discoverable through the site will have a digital copy available, although some may not yet have a file attached, and others may have access restricted.

Junior doctors and stress

The British Medical Journal has just published an article, "How to handle stress and look after your mental health" by Amy Iverson and others. (BMJ 2009;338:b1368). Twenty years ago it was reported that among doctors in their first year of graduating, 50% had emotional disturbance and 28% fulfilled criteria for depression. Since then, working hours have decreased, and the way that doctors are trained and managed has changed substantially. The authors reveal that despite this, the proportion of doctors experiencing psychological distress has remained constant, at about 28%, compared with about 18% in the general working population.
This article gives advice to junior doctors on how to manage stressful situations and avoid potential mental illness.
Access the article through CIAP Online Journals, our A-Z electronic journals list, or by contacting your friendly librarian.

Rare Diseases information

Orphanet is a database of information on rare diseases and orphan drugs. Its stated aim is "to contribute to the improvement of the diagnosis, care and treatment of patients with rare diseases." It includes information for both health professionals and patients, a collection of review articles, a database of orphan drugs, and some good links to relevant clinics, clinical laboratories, research activities and patient organisations.