Sugary drinks tax - report

The Grattan Institute's report, A sugary drinks tax: recovering the community costs of obesity, strongly supports the imposition of an excise tax of 40 cents per 100 grams of sugar on all non-alcoholic, water-based drinks containing added sugar. "Such a tax would increase the price of a two-litre bottle of soft drink by about 80 cents, raise about $500 million a year, and generate a fall of about 15 per cent in the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages."

The report provides obesity statistics and costings in Australia, and cites other countries which already have, or are planning to have, a tax on soft drinks - France, Belgium, Hungary, Finland, Chile, the UK, Ireland, South Africa, and parts of the US.

Drug-caused deaths in Australian health professionals

A study recently published in the journal Addiction, looked at the risk of substance abuse and its associated premature death in health professionals.  404 drug-caused deaths reported to a coroner between 2003 and 2013 from this cohort were examined.  The researchers found that the most common drug-caused deaths involving health professionals at this time were females in their mid-40s with a diagnosis of mental illness.

Pilgrim, J. L., Dorward, R., and Drummer, O. H. (2016) Drug-caused deaths in Australian medical practitioners and health-care professionals. Addiction, doi: 10.1111/add.13619.  (Access is available via CIAP for NSW Health staff)

HIV, viral hepatitis and STIs

HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually transmissible infections in Australia: Annual surveillance report 2016 has been published by the Kirby Institute at the University of NSW.

This analysis includes estimates of incidence and prevalence of HIV and viral hepatitis, by demographic and risk groups, patterns of treatment for HIV and viral hepatitis infection, and behavioural risk factors for HIV and Hepatitis C infection. This annual report has been published every year since 1997. Among the many findings in this year's report are:

• The number of HIV notifications newly diagnosed in Australia has remained stable for the past four years
• At 0.1%, the prevalence or overall proportion of people in Australia who are living with HIV is low compared to other high income countries, and countries in the region.
• In 2015 there were 10,790 notifications of hepatitis C, with the highest rates in the 25 – 39 year age group.
• Chlamydia was the second most frequently reported notifiable condition in Australia in 2015, with a total of 66 033 notifications.

You can also access the Kirby Institute's interactive surveillance data website, which provides the report information in graphs and other useful visuals.

Equality and Diversity in Psycho-Oncology

A Special Issue of the journal Psycho-Oncology focussing on inequalities in cancer has been published. Concerns are raised relating to what is known about the experience of cancer treatment and cancer treatment outcomes in adults with dementia.

Findings indicate that, when compared with other cancer patients, those with dementia are diagnosed at a later stage, receive less treatment, are more likely to experience complications from treatment and have poorer survival. 

Special Issue: Equality and Diversity in Psycho-Oncology, (2016). Psycho-Oncology. 25(10), 1121-1249

Safety Monitoring and Reporting in Clinical Trials

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has issued new Guidance on safety monitoring and reporting in clinical trials. This Guidance will replace the existing 2009 Australian Human Ethics Committee Position Statement: Safety Monitoring and Reporting in Clinical Trials Involving Therapeutic Goods.
This guidance specifically addresses the monitoring, collection and reporting of adverse events and adverse reactions that occur in clinical trials involving investigational medicinal products (IMPs) and investigational medical devices (IMDs) for trials conducted under the Clinical Trial Exemption (CTX) or Clinical Trial Notification (CTN) schemes. The Guidance is also broadly applicable to all clinical trials involving therapeutic goods.
Guidance for Safety Monitoring and Reporting in Clinical Trials; involving therapeutic goods, (2016)

Does quality improvement improve quality?

The authors of this article in Future Hospital Journal describe the issue of quality improvement; “Although quality improvement (QI) is frequently advocated as a way of addressing the problems with healthcare, evidence of its effectiveness has remained very mixed. QI work is often pursued through time-limited, small-scale projects, led by professionals who may lack the expertise, power or resources to instigate the changes required. There is insufficient attention to rigorous evaluation of improvement and to sharing the lessons of successes and failures. Too many QI interventions are seen as ‘magic bullets’ that will produce improvement in any situation, regardless of context. Too much improvement work is undertaken in isolation at a local level, failing to pool resources and develop collective solutions, and introducing new hazards in the process.”

Dixon-Woods, Mary, Martin, Graham. (2016). Does Quality Improvement Improve Quality. Future Hospital Journal, 3(3), 191-194

Shared Decision Making through Reflective Practice

This article in the journal MedSurg Nursing focuses on competencies of shared decision making with examples of the knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes needed if shared decision making is to be realized. It also demonstrates how self-reflective questioning assists the clinical nurse to integrate these competencies in practice. This is Part II in a series of articles on shared decision making. Part I of this series reviewed background literature and considered descriptions of shared decision making, including the process and outcomes.

Truglio-Londrigan, M. (2016). Shared Decision Making through Reflective Practice: Part II
Medsurg Nursing, 25(5), 341-345,350.
 

MNCLHD staff can access this article free full text via the e-journal site or ask your library staff.

Getting Australia's Health on Track

A new report "Getting Australia’s Health on Track" presents 10 priority policy actions that, together, will help get Australia on track to reach the 2025 targets and significantly reduce preventable illness and disability in the population. It has been produced by a national collaboration of Australia’s leading chronic disease experts and organisations.

Its focus is upon interventions to reduce the consumption of sugar, salt and alcohol, and to tackle junk food marketing. It also recommends actions to reduce smoking, particularly by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and by people with mental illness.

Getting Australia's health on track—a policy report for a healthier Australia. Australian Health Policy Collaboration, 2016

Busting the cranberry myth

A recent program on ABC's Health Report titled Busting the Cranberry Myth, looked at a randomised trial which showed no significant difference in women in nursing homes who took cranberry capsules for urinary tract infections, compared to a control group who took a placebo. The lead author of the paper, published in JAMA, Manisha Juthani-Mehta, was interviewed on the program and explained her findings. She did say that cranberries probably help ease the symptoms of urinary tract infections, but could not find evidence that they can treat the problem.

Manisha Juthani-Mehta et al. Effect of Cranberry Capsules on Bacteriuria Plus Pyuria Among Older Women in Nursing Homes: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2016;316(18):1879-1887. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.16141

Medical students and patient-centredness

A study of medical students in Victoria found that while their confidence increased over the course of two years of clinical training, their attitudes to patient centredness did not change.  They had positive attitudes throughout and "noted its importance in contributing to quality care".

The article, published in BMC Medical Education aimed to compare students' attitudes to these two important outcomes of medical education, and to see how the setting of their clinical placement influenced them.  The authors concluded that "a new generation of doctors with a strong patient-centred focus is emerging".  Patient centredness was encouraged and supported within their clinical placements and influenced by role modelling.

Ruth McNair, Leonie Griffiths, Katharine Reid, Hannah Sloan. (2016). Medical students developing confidence and patient centredness in diverse clinical settings: A longitudinal survey study.  BMC Medical Education, 16:176  

Eye Health web resource

The Australian Indigenous HealthInfo Net has set up an Eye Health Web Resource for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The tools and information on this page are set up to support health professionals and students of eye health in this group.  They include links to programs and projects, reviews of the literature, relevant policies, health promotion resources and information about the workforce in this field - training, conferences and job opportunities.

Emergency department care 2015-16

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has published a new report on emergency department care. In 2015-16, there were 7.5 million presentations to public hospital emergency departments across Australia (excluding the Australian Capital Territory), or more than 20,000 presentations each day.

• 74% of patients received treatment within an appropriate time for their urgency (triage) category;
• 73% of patients spent 4 hours or less in the emergency department;
• 2.2 million patients were admitted to hospital from the emergency department, and 49% of these were admitted within 4 hours.

Download the report for free: Emergency department care 2015-16: Australian hospital  statistics. AIHW catalogue number [HSE 182].

Sharing of Trial Results

It is interesting the number of drug trials that are not published. Clinical trials are the best way we have of testing whether a medicine is safe and effective. They can involve thousands of people, patients and healthy volunteers, and take years to complete, but trials with negative results are twice as likely to remain unreported as those with positive results. This means that patients and doctors don't have the full information about the benefits and risks of treatments. 

The link to the trials tracker, built by the Evidence-Based Medicine Data Lab at University of Oxford is here: https://trialstracker.ebmdatalab.net/#/   

Review Issue on Viruses and Disease

The reviews assembled in this free virtual issue of the Journal of Pathology focus on the interface between virology and pathology and encompass aspects of both the clinical pathology of viral disease and the underlying disease mechanisms.

(2015). Journal of Pathology. Special Issue: Viruses and Disease, 235(2)  

Occupational Therapy Practice Guidelines

The American Occupational Therapy Association has updated 2 guidelines;

• Occupational therapy practice guidelines for adults with traumatic brain injury.  In addition to the evidence-based recommendations below, the guideline includes extensive information on the evaluation process and intervention strategies for people with traumatic brain injury (TBI)  

• Occupational therapy practice guidelines for individuals with autism spectrum disorder.  In addition to the evidence-based recommendations below, the guideline includes extensive information on the evaluation process and intervention strategies for people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Workplace Bullying and Psychological Safety in the Workplace

Safe Work Australia has published two new research reports that present the latest findings on the prevalence of workplace bullying and harassment; and the impact of management commitment to psychological health and safety and poor mental health in the workplace on organisational productivity.

The Psychosocial Safety Climate and Better Productivity in Australian Workplaces: Cost, Productivity, Presenteeism, Absenteesim report presents an estimate that productivity losses associated with low levels of management commitment to psychological health and safety in the workplace comes at a cost to employers of $6 billion per annum.

The Bullying & Harassment in Australian Workplaces: Results from the Australian Workplace Barometer project 2014/2015 report provides information on the prevalence of bullying and harassment in Australian workplaces. It reports an increase in the estimated prevalence of bullying in Australian workplaces, from 7% in 2009-10 to 9.7% in 2014-15.   

Child abuse and neglect statistics

The Australian Institute of Family Studies has published this report which discusses a snapshot of data describing child protection activity in Australia.  State and territory governments have the statutory responsibility for protecting children from child abuse and neglect, which can be problematic with separate jurisdictions resulting in some children 'falling through the cracks.'

The report presents figures on the numbers of notifications to child protection services in Australia, investigations, the nature of substantiated reports of harm and the characteristics of children who are harmed. There are links to various other sites and further detailed information.

Child Abuse and Neglect Statistics 

Australian atlas of healthcare variation

An online Interactive Australian Atlas of Healthcare Variation has been developed by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, which covers the areas of:

• Antimicrobial dispensing 
• Diagnostic interventions 
• Surgical interventions 
• Interventions for mental health and psychotropic medicines 
• Opioid medicines 
• Interventions for chronic diseases. 

The interactive atlas provides an easy interface to all the content in the Australian Atlas of Healthcare Variation, including the availability of data in easy-to-download formats. Users are able to look at maps of Primary Health and Local  Hospital networks and compare their areas with state, national and sometimes international rates.

Practice Guidelines for Burn Care

The International Society for Burn Injuries (ISBI) has long recognized a need to provide burn care practitioners with recommendations for patient care. The purpose of setting forth practice guidelines was to define the most effective and efficient methods of evaluation and management of burn injuries. And these practice guidelines were to be suitable for both Resource Limited Settings (RLS) and Resource Abundant Settings (RAS).

2016. ISBI Practice Guidelines for Burn Care. Burns. 42(5). 953–1021 

Heart Failure journal

This new open access journal from the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology publishes high quality open access research that improves the understanding, prevention, investigation and treatment of heart failure.
 ESC Heart Failure journal.   

Prevention of Surgical Site Infection

The World Health Organization (WHO) has released this set of guidelines to reduce the global burden of surgical site infections (SSIs) which occur when bacteria enters a patient's body through incisions made during surgery.  These new WHO guidelines are valid for any country and suitable to local adaptations, and take account of the strength of available scientific evidence, the cost and resource implications, and patient values and preferences.
The document includes 29 recommendations covering 23 topics for the prevention of SSI in the pre-, intra and postoperative periods.

Global Guidelines for the Prevention of Surgical Site Infection

World Health Organization, Geneva: 2016  

Antimicrobial Resistance

Two recent reports have been published in Australia and the UK, on Antimicrobial Resistance. The Australian Government has released the first Implementation Plan to support the National Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy 2015-2019. The Plan incorporates activities being undertaken across various sectors to encourage and enable collaboration and information sharing. These activities contribute to the establishment of an evidence base and better target our efforts to address gaps and ensure appropriate policies and programs are in place to limit the development of antimicrobial resistance.

Implementation Plan: National Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy 2015-2019

Australian Government, Department of Health, Department of Agriculture and Water Resources
Canberra: Australian Government; 2016.

The second report from the UK discusses the growing problem of resistance and why action is needed, provides an overview of the solutions that the Review team thinks should be implemented to curtail unnecessary use and increase the supply of new antimicrobials. The report also discusses public awareness campaigns, the need to improve sanitation and hygiene, reduce pollution from agriculture and the environment, improve global surveillance, introduce rapid diagnostics and vaccines, the need to increase the number of people in this area, and use of market entry rewards and an innovation fund to generate more drugs.

Tackling drug-resistant infections globally:Final report and recommendations

Review on Antimicrobial Resistance. London: 2016

Patient Experiences in Australia: Summary of Findings, 2015-16

This publication from the Australian Bureau of Statistics presents information from the 2015-16 Patient Experience Survey.  The ABS Patient Experience Survey is conducted annually and collects data on access and barriers to a range of health care services, including:

• general practitioners (GPs) 
• medical specialists 
• dental professionals 
• imaging and pathology tests 
• hospital admissions 
• emergency department visits (ED)

It includes data from people that accessed health services in the previous 12 months, as well as from those who did not, and enables analysis of health service information in relation to particular population groups. Data are also collected on aspects of communication between patients and health professionals.
4839.0 Patient Experiences in Australia: Summary of Findings, 2015-16

Education resources from Australia's Health 2016

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has produced some great education resources to go with the 2016 edition of Australia's Health. All the resources are free to download and print, as long as AIHW is attributed.

Here you can find a quiz, some worksheets and factsheets, links to the OzHealth app for iPhone, and a powerpoint presentation.

Intimate partner violence reports

Two new reports from Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety have recently been published, showing that among women aged 18-44, family violence  is the biggest risk factor contributing to disease burden - greater than smoking, alcohol use and obesity. Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects one in three women, seriously impacting their health.  
Examination of the burden of disease of intimate partner violence against women in 2011: final report provides details of  IPV as a risk factor for an "attributable" total, non-fatal and fatal burden of disease.

A preventable burden - Measuring and addressing the prevalence and health impacts of intimate partner violence in Australian women: key findings and future directions is by one of the authors of the above paper, Kim Webster. Here she provides useful infographics and suggestions for reducing the health burden of IPV by better support and for women and children after violence, and more effective preventative measures. 

See also Kim Webster's explanatory article in The Conversation: Study confirms intimate partner violence leading health risk factor for women.

Radiotherapy in Australia

This report from the AIHW presents data from the second year of the pilot data collection on radiotherapy treatment which covers courses that started in 2014–15 and the waiting times for those treatments.

Radiotherapy in Australia: report on the second year of a pilot collection 2014–15 looked at almost 56,400 courses of radiotherapy and showed that public providers delivered 71% of courses. Breast, prostate and lung cancers were the most common reasons for radiotherapy and 69% of patients starting treatment were aged 60 and over. 58% of the radiotherapy courses were intended to cure disease, 38% of courses were delivered for palliative purposes and 2.7% were prophylactic. 

As far as waiting times, 50% of patients received treatment within 10 days of being assessed as ready for care, and 90% received treatment within 28 days.

Population ageing and Australia's future

Population ageing and Australia's future is a new publication from the Australian National University, with a detailed examination of our population statistics and implications into the future.  It builds on presentations made to the 2014 Symposium of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) and provides evidence from a range of experts in diverse fields, including anthropology, demography, economics, education, history, law, psychology, social medicine and statistics.

This feely-downloadable book is divided into four parts:
- Perspectives on Ageing
- Population Ageing: Global, regional and Australian perspectives
- Improving Health and Wellbeing
- Responses by Government and Families/Individuals.

World Alzheimer Report 2016

The World Alzheimer Report 2016, Improving healthcare for people living with dementia: Coverage, quality and costs now and in the future, has been published by Alzheimer's Disease International. The authors argue that healthcare for people with dementia should be continuous, holistic and integrated. Current services are over-specialised, and there needs to be a more prominent role for primary and community care.  

Four main themes emerged from reviews conducted: the need for a systemisation of care processes, better management of the complexity of multimorbidities, more research, and an acknowledgement of the costs offset by efficiencies.