SeeMe website

SeeMe is a new, curriculum aligned, interactive online resource that builds media literacy skills in an effort to tackle the alarming incidence of body dissatisfaction reported by Australian young people. The SeeMe website has been developed and piloted with an inspirational group of year 8 Student Leaders (both girls and boys) from three Victorian schools. The group worked with the Queen Victoria Women's Centre, the Victorian Government and a number of other partner organisations, to create the website incorporating a range of ICT tools across five interactive modules.

After participating in the SeeMe program, 79% of students reported that they were better able to identify media techniques in altering and distorting images online.

Facts at your Fingertips: Health, 2011

The Australian Bureau of Statistics collects a wide range of health information from the National Health Survey (NHS), the Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing (SMHWB), and the Patient Experience Survey (PEx). The Facts at your Fingertips: Health publication is intended to showcase some of this data in a series of fact sheets, which will be added to periodically. We are heavier, taller and in more pain! Read more in .
Facts at your Fingertips: Health

New online mental health tool

MyCompass is a new online mental health tool designed to support people living with a mental health issue such as anxiety or depression. Developed by a team of health professionals at the Black Dog Institute, and funded by the Australian Government, myCompass is an online tool that assesses user symptoms, then provides a personalised support program. The interactive program includes online psychological tools, round-the-clock monitoring of moods and behaviours and motivational tips via email and SMS.

Users are able to access myCompass through a desktop computer or their mobile phone, giving them private secure access to a suite of tools designed to help them self manage symptoms and improve their overall wellbeing. Users are able to monitor how they feel in real time, detect patterns if they exist, and select tips and techniques that suit their own situation and lifestyle.

Spasticity in children and young people

This clinical guideline offers evidence-based advice on the management of spasticity and co-existing motor disorders and their early musculoskeletal complications in children and young people with non-progressive brain disorders. Published by the National Insititue for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the guideline is free to download. A booklet for patients and carers is also available.

The truth about sports drinks

It has been found in a joint investigation by the BMJ and BBC Panorama  that there is “a striking lack of evidence” to support claims about improved performance and recovery for many sports products like drinks, trainers and protein shakes.

The investigation reveals new research carried out by the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine and the BMJ, concluding that no sound evidence could be found to support claims made by some of sport’s biggest brands and that it is “virtually impossible for the public to make informed choices about the benefits and harms of advertised sports products.” The article suggests that the fear of deyhration has been a successful marketing ploy by the makers of sports drinks.

The investigation concludes: “For now, the evidence we do have seems to be leading us to a rather common sense and affordable solution. Eat a well balanced diet, drink water, find some comfy shoes, and get out there and exercise regularly.” Click here to go to the BMJ site.

BMJ 2012;345:e4737 (21 July 2012)

Lancet olympic edition – emphasis on lack of physical activity

The global issue of physical inactivity has been highlighted as pandemic in a series of five articles on physical activity in The Lancet’s recent special pre-Olympic issue.
The first paper, “Global physical activity levels: surveillance, progress, pitfalls and prospects” by Professor Fiona Bull and others, presents new estimates on current levels of physical activity and trends worldwide, alongside analyses that quantify the global impact of physical inactivity on the world's major non-communicable diseases.
The other articles also review why some people are active and why they are not, provide evidence-based strategies for effective physical activity promotion, and discuss how a multi-sector and systems-wide approach that goes way beyond health is critical to a worldwide increase in activity levels. 
Worldwide, around a third of adults (about 1.5 billion people) and four out of five adolescents are failing to do recommended amounts of physical activity, placing them at 20-30 per cent greater risk of heart disease, diabetes, and some types of cancer. This Lancet series highlights an incomplete and unfocused response to physical inactivity in most countries, which has often been understaffed and underfunded, compared to other risk factors for non-communicable diseases.

Lancet 380 (9838) July 21, 2012 (Contact your library if you cannot access the full text. Available via CIAP.)

Vitamin D guidelines

Vitamin D and health in adults in Australia and New Zealand: a position statement, by John J McGrath and Caryl A Nowson, is a recent article in the Medical Journal of Australia.  Vitamin D status has emerged as a significant public health issue in Australia and New Zealand, and here the authors provide updated guidance to clinicians and health professionals on the role of vitamin D in health for adults. 
Most adults are unlikely to obtain more than 5-10% of their vitamin D requirement from dietary sources, so exposure to sunlight is important.  For moderately fair-skinned people, a walk with arms exposed for 6-7 minutes  mid morning or mid afternoon in summer, and with as much bare skin exposed as feasible for 7-40 minutes at noon in winter, on most days, is likely to be helpful in maintaining adequate vitamin D levels in the body. 
Med J Aust 2012; 196 (11): 686-687

Care for people with complex needs - conference

Achieving high-quality care for people with complex needs was the subject of a recent King's Fund conference in the UK.  Age-related chronic conditions absorb the largest, and growing, share of health care budgets and the need to coordinate effective care for people with these conditions is vital.   The conference explored how to streamline care for people with complex chronic conditions and frail older people. 

You can watch the videocast of speakers presenting, or download the text of all presentations.

Australia's Food and Nutrition 2012

This new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare highlights the key components of the food and nutrition system. It describes the system from 'paddock to plate' and how food choices affect our health and the environment.
There are detailed sections on the types of food we produce, how it's distributed, how we choose our foods and how they are advertised.  It also looks at our diet and how that can be improved, and then goes on to discuss global issues such as food waste and security, biodiversity and the effects of climate change.

You can read the full version of the report, or a handy "In Brief" booklet.

Telehealth - BMJ evaluation of large trial

'Does telemedicine deserve the green light?' is a paper recently published in the British Medical Journal by Jonathan Gornall.  The UK government is enthusiastically promoting telehealth as a way to cut costs and improve care, but the evidence emerging from a large NHS trial seems much more equivocal.  The UK government’s three and a half year, £30m evaluation of telehealth and telecare recruited people with diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease , and heart failure from 179 general practices in England and encouraged them to measure such things as their blood pressure, lung function, and blood glucose and asked them to respond to symptom questions and educational messages.  Questions are raised by Gornall as to whether the program is going to be as useful as anticipated.

Also see the editorial, Telehealth : only part of the solution (BMJ 2012; 345 doi: 10.1136/ bmj.e4724)  

BMJ 2012; 345 doi: 10.1136/bmj.e4622 (Published 10 July 2012).  Full text available via CIAP, or ask your librarian.

MIMS consumer website - myDr

myDr.com.au is a site from MIMS and Medical Observer, which has a raft of information about for Australian consumers on medicines and health.  It includes directories of health professionals, all the MIMS consumer information sheets, 3000 articles about various conditions, health news and health tools such as risk calculators.

Searchable by broad conditions, symptoms or medicines, this is a very useful source for patient information.

Developing clinical guidelines

This useful very useful article, Developing clinical practice guidelines: reviewing, reporting, and publishing guidelines; updating guidelines; and the emerging issues of enhancing guideline implementability and accounting for comorbid conditions in guideline development by Paul Shekelle et al., has been published provisionally in open access.

The methods of guideline development have progressed both in terms of methods and necessary procedures and the context for guideline development has changed with the emergence of guideline clearing houses and large scale guideline production organisations (such as the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence).  The authors discuss the issues of reviewing, reporting, updating and publishing guidelines, how to implement them, and dealing with patients having co-morbid conditions.

Implementation Science 2012, 7:62 doi:10.1186/1748-5908-7-62

Nursing and midwifery workforce

This report from the AIHW, Nursing and midwifery workforce 2011,  reported that in that year, the total number of nurses and midwives registered in Australia was 326,669, a 6.8% increase since 2007 (305,834).  Overall, nursing and midwifery supply decreased by 1.3% between 2007 and 2011, mainly as a result of a 7.4% decrease in the number of employed enrolled nurses and a 1.6% decrease in the average hours worked by all nurses and midwives over this period.

Nursing and midwifery continued to be a female-dominated profession, with women comprising 90.1% of employed nurses and midwives in 2011, and the average age of this workforce increased between 2007 and 2011 from 43.7 to 44.5 years. The proportion of nurses and midwives aged 50 or older increased from 33.0% to 38.6%.  Almost two thirds of employed nurses worked in hospitals.

Ethics in obesity interventions

Another recent item on ethics in the NSW Public Health Bulletin is Ethical issues in obesity interventions for populations by Craig L. Fry.  The article discusses ethical questions that we must consider in the justification of obesity interventions in the name of expected population health gains.  The prevalence of overweight and obesity in Australia highlights some areas of uncertainty and identifies some important ethical questions that arise as a result.  Fry's aim is to broaden debate on this topic.
New South Wales Public Health Bulletin, Vol. 23 No. 5 & 6 2012 

Public health ethics

Using ethical theory and empirical analyses to determine and justify the right thing to do in public health, this paper distinguishes public health ethics from clinical ethics, research ethics, public health law and politics.  Public health ethics : informing better health practice, by Stacy M. Carter et al, discusses the issues in public health ethics including: how to weigh up the benefits, harms and costs of intervening; how to ensure that public health interventions produce fair outcomes; the potential for public health to undermine or promote the rights of citizens; and the significance of being transparent and inclusive in public health interventions.  
New South Wales Public Health Bulletin, Vol. 23(6) 2012 

Appropriateness of health care delivery - CareTrack

There have been many media reports today about a study just published in the Medical Journal of Australia: CareTrack: assessing the appropriateness of health care delivery in Australia by William B Runciman et al, from the universities of NSW and South Australia.

The researchers found from a three-year study of over 1000 people receiving treatment for 22 common conditions, that only 57% had received appropriate evidence-based care.  They conclude "Although there were pockets of excellence and some aspects of care were well managed across health care providers, the consistent delivery of appropriate care needs improvement, and gaps in care should be addressed."
Med J Aust 2012;  197 (2): 100-105.   doi:  10.5694/mja12.10510 

Global Health 2012

The inaugural edition of Global Health – published by WHO to coincide with the 65th World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland, from 21-26 May – explores how organisations responsible for improving health and well-being worldwide can address the many challenges they face. The publication includes articles from leading global health institutions, including many of those represented at the WHA.

Topics include the national and international efforts in the ongoing fight against the major infectious diseases of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and polio, as well as strategies to tackle non-communicable diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and chronic respiratory disease.

Lab Tests Online

Lab Tests Online-AU has been designed to help the patient to better understand the many clinical laboratory tests that are part of routine care, as well as those used in the diagnosis and treatment of a broad range of conditions and diseases. This website is specifically designed for the Australian healthcare consumer needing up-to-date and reliable information about laboratory tests and how they are used.

You can search by condition or test, and the results are detailed and informative.  There is also a list of recommended screening for different age groups and links to recent news items related to diagnostic testing.

Mental health of prison entrants 2010

The Mental Health of Prison Entrants in Australia: 2010 reports on the mental health of prison entrants, based on data from the 2010 National Prisoner Health Census.  

• Nearly one third of prison entrants reported that they had mental health issues (a rate 2.5 times higher than the general population) 

• 16% of prison entrants took medication for mental health issues

• 3 in 4 prison entrants who were taking mental health medication had used illicit drugs in the previous 12 months, more than half consumed alcohol at risky levels and nearly 90% smoked.

Rural Health Channel

The Rural Health Channel is the first nationally available free-to-air health TV channel. It began broadcasting on the 21st May 2012.

The aim is to broadcast Rural Health Education Foundation (REHF) professionally accredited programs as well as health education information and programs from other providers such as government, professional organisations and health associations.  The channel is on-air up to 24 hours per week; with sessions on weekday afternoons (1.30-3.30pm) and weekday evenings (7.30-9.30pm) and a late afternoon session on Sundays (4.30-6pm).  It is being broadcast on Channel 600 via the Optus Aurora Digital satellite system which carries VAST (Viewer Access Satellite Television) services.  

How to make emergency departments work – essay

Last Resort: How the rebirth of general medicine will save lives, by Karen Hitchcock has just been published in the Australian current affairs magazine,The Monthly. Hitchcock, who is a hospital doctor, discusses the problems with emergency department waiting times and the way they are being addressed in Australia.  She calls for an upheaval of the system and a focus on general medicine, with the ideal of every person walking in being seen by a senior consultant straight away. 

Surgery in Australian hospitals 2010-11

Surgery in Australian Hospitals 2010-11 is a snapshot bulletin providing an overview of Australia's 2.4 million annual hospitalisations for surgery, based on data first published by the AIHW in April. In 2010-11, when around 1.0 million surgery hospitalisations occurred in public hospitals and 1.4 million in private hospitals. Almost a quarter of all hospitalisations in this period involved surgery.  The report includes information on waiting times, who received the surgery, what type of surgery was performed, and the lengths of stay.

World Drug Report

The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime has released the World Drug Report 2010.  Globally, it is estimated that in 2010 between 153 million and 300 million people aged 15-64 had used an illicit substance at least once in the previous year. It is also estimated this illicit drug use resulted in between 99,000 and 253,000 deaths globally in 2010.  Further, it was estimated that in 2008 there were 16 million injecting drug users worldwide and that 3 million (18.9 per cent) of them were living with HIV.

The first part of this year’s Report provides an overview of recent trends and the drug situation in terms of production, trafficking and consumption, as well as the consequences of illicit drug use - treatment, drug related diseases and drug-related deaths. The second part starts with a discussion of the main characteristics of the contemporary drug problem, followed by an overview of the shifts observed over the last few decades, before concluding with an analysis of the driving factors that shaped the evolution of the drug problem, including a brief outlook for its likely future direction. 

Perinatal depression - AIHW report

Perinatal depression: data from the 2010 Australian National Infant Feeding Survey showed that 1 in 5 (20%) mothers of children aged 24 months or less had been diagnosed with depression. More than half of these mothers reported being diagnosed with depression during the perinatal period. Perinatal depression was more commonly reported among mothers who were younger (aged under 25), smokers, overweight/obese and from lower income households.

Revised Australian Standard on sunscreen

Standards Australia has updated it's standard on sunscreen, AS/NZS 2604:2012 Sunscreen
products—Evaluation and classification.  Changes include:

• SPF 50+ as the new protection benchmark 
• Higher requirements on water resistance levels
• Labelling restrictions, with the words ‘waterproof’, ‘sunblock’ and ‘sweat-proof’ banned

Read the media release here. To purchase a copy of the standard, go to the SAI Global Store.

Healthcare across Australia 2010-11

Healthcare 2010-11: Comparing performance across Australia is the third report from the COAG Reform Council assessing progress under their National Healthcare Agreement. One of the key findings is that while there has been progress in improving hospital care, it is not consistent across Australia. For example, elective surgery waiting times have improved in a number of areas, but some of the states with larger populations are lagging. The report also finds that health outcomes are still not equal for all Australians, with more people delaying seeing a GP due to cost, and a quarter of people reporting financial barriers to seeing a dentist.  

Enhancing health services for Aboriginal people with chronic illness

Strategic approaches to enhanced health service delivery for aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with chronic illness: A qualitative study, is an article by Aspin et al. in BMC Health Services Research. 

The results of this Australian qualitative research  indicated that there are both negative and positive influences which affect the health and wellbeing of this population. Non-Indigenous health services struggle to meet the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with chronic illness, but major improvements can be achieved if health services recognise and integrate cultural and traditional knowledge into care and support programs. 

BMC Health Services Research, 12: 143. 2012.

SayWhen: Drinking and You

SayWhen provides information and resources to help you make decisions about your drinking, whatever those decisions might be. And if you decide you'd like to make a change, SayWhen can help you get started.

SayWhen is an initiative of the Victorian Government and was developed by a team of psychologists at Queensland University of Technology on behalf of the Department of Health, Victoria.

Patient Safety: from learning to action

Queensland Health has just published the fifth edition of their From learning to action report. From the Executive Summary: ‘This report is for all Queenslanders, but in particular for Queensland Health staff and community members interested in knowing what is being done to improve patient safety. It is also for anyone who wants to share in, and benefit from, what has been learnt since a comprehensive patient safety system was introduced into Queensland Health.’
Download or read the report here.

Patients with Blood Clots

People who present to hospital with blood clots in the legs or lungs should be offered treatment within 4 hours and have their investigative tests including scans within 24 hours, according to the latest National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines.
Those aged 40 and over who develop a blood clot should also be tested to see whether they have an underlying cancer. The opportunity to check for cancer is also being missed, despite estimates suggesting that one in 10 people with a blood clot have an underlying cancer.
Venous thromboembolism (VTE) guideline.

Depression and Antidepressant Medicines

To help people be medicinewise, the National Prescribing Service has launched a new online knowledge hub on depression and antidepressant medicines. The new NPS knowledge hub provides:

* tips on finding the right treatment for you and what to do about side effects from an antidepressant
* an A-Z listing of different antidepressant medicines with information about effectiveness, side effects, interactions, and who needs to take extra care with them (e.g. other medical conditions that increase the risk of side effects)
* information on how to avoid side effects and symptoms when making changes, and
* an overview of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), an effective alternative to antidepressants for some people, and a useful addition to antidepressant therapy for some others, as well as lifestyle changes and other supportive treatments that can be of benefit.