Culture Shock and Healthcare Workers in Remote Indigenous Communities

"Culture shock and healthcare workers in remote Indigenous communities of Australia: what do we know and how can we measure it?"
Does incomplete cultural adaptation among non-Indigenous health professionals working in Indigenous communities contribute to rural workforce shortages? This comprehensive review of the international literature offers evidence about the impact of culture shock in remote Australia, with potential application to other world regions. It has recently been published in the journal 'Rural and Remote Health'.

Pharmacists in Inland Australia - Pilot Study

The journal Rural and Remote Health has recently published an article by Mary Madden and Patrick Ball titled "The decision-making processes of pharmacists in inland Australia - A pilot study". In this wide-ranging pilot study, the rural Australian participant pharmacists broached many themes and issues, including privacy concerns, the unique nature of each dispensing environment, the usefulness (or not) of technology, compliance with regulations and staff's embrace of the safety culture. Essential reading for all who have an interest in the safe supply of medicines.

A snapshot of osteoporosis in Australia 2011

Osteoporosis causes bones to become weak, and increase the likelihood of fracture. This new AIHW report updates the key figures and facts about osteoporosis in Australia.

Taking medication: The most important dosage forms

Sugar-coated tablet, granulate or chewable capsule – some drugs are already absorbed by the body in your mouth. For others, this starts to happen only in the stomach or bowel. For medications to reach their target in the body, they are available in different dosage forms. Informed Health Online has put together a list of the most important dosage forms of oral medications. Download the list here.

Mandatory folic acid and iodine

AIHW has published a new report "Mandatory folic acid and iodine fortification in Australia and New Zealand: baseline report for monitoring." This report presents key baseline data for monitoring mandatory folic acid and iodine fortification in Australia and New Zealand. Data are presented for each component of the fortification monitoring frameworks as follows: food composition; folic acid and iodine intake; folic acid and iodine status of the populations; and health outcomes.

Australian Family Relationship Clearinghouse bibliography collection

The Australian Family Relationships Clearinghouse now provides real-time searches for bibliographies on a range of topics related to family, family relationships and issues that affect Australian families.
All bibliographies are sourced from the library database of the Australian Institute of Family Studies, and related to international and Australian research on family wellbeing in Australia.
Where available, links to online documents are provided.
Search the bibliographies at: http://www.aifs.gov.au/afrc/bibs/bib.html

Dementia among aged care residents:

The Aged Care Funding Instrument (ACFI) is a new tool to appraise the care needs of permanent residents in residential aged care facilities. The ACFI appraisal was used to identify more than 104,400 permanent residents in 2008-09 who had a diagnosis of dementia. This equates to 53% of all residents with an ACFI appraisal in this financial year. Seventy per cent of residents with a dementia diagnosis were female reflecting their overall proportion in residential care. Approximately 79% of all residents with dementia were aged 70 years and over.

This new AIHW report, presenting data for 2008–09, is the first to examine the characteristics and care requirements of Australian aged care residents with a diagnosis of dementia. It will be useful for informing the allocation of future aged care funding and the development of aged care facilities to meet the needs of the ageing Australian population.

Questions and answers in Indigenous health

The latest issue of the Medical Journal of Australia (May 16, 2011) focuses on indigenous health in Australia. It covers two major sections on policy and Closing the Gap.

The Dr Ross Ingram Memorial Competition Winning Essay entitled "Mental illness or spiritual illness: what should we call it?" by Lindy L Moffatt is featured along with "Alfie the tooth fairy (an animation) - Winning Artwork; The importance of keeping tooth fairies healthy by Alison Dimer, and other winning entries.

Those staff in NSW Health can access the fulltext articles via CIAP.

NLM Resource: Chemical Structure Images

The National Library of Medicine Division of Specialized Information Services (SIS) has added chemical structure images from the NLM ChemIDplus® database to Hazardous Substances Databank (HSDB®) records. HSDB is a comprehensive, peer-reviewed toxicology data for about 5,000 chemicals.
The chemical structures can be viewed in the HSDB record header with the chemical name and registry number. Users can save the chemical structure as a ".png" file.

Open Poster Repository for Biology & Medicine

An open access repository from Facultyof 1000 (developed by the founders of open access), called F1000 Posters (http://posters.f1000.com), covers posters from the leading biology and medicine conferences. Since its launch in June 2010, it has grown quite considerably, and now includes posters from over 180 international meetings, with some posters receiving 400-850 views in a month. This new tool may be of interest to all people working in the health industry.
By keeping the work visible long after a meeting has ended it maximises the time, effort and cost invested in creating each poster.

Reflux Diseases Topic Resource Center

The Reflux Diseases Topic Resource Center was created to help clinicians stay up-to-date with advances in the diagnosis and management of reflux diseases.

Interventions for improving mobility after hip fracture surgery in adults

The aim of care after surgery for hip fracture is to get people safely back on their feet and walking again. Initially, people may be asked to rest in bed and restrict weight bearing. Then various strategies to improve mobility, including gait retraining and exercise programmes, are used during hospital stay and often after discharge from hospital.
The authors of a recent Cochrane Review set out to determine what are the best strategies for adults. The meta-analysis used data from 19 trials involving 1,589 participants, generally aged over 65 years. There was no pooling of data because no two trials were sufficiently alike.

Patient Blood Management Guidelines

NHMRC recently approved this guideline developed by the National Blood Authority (NBA) for use by health care professionals in managing patients with critical bleeding requiring massive transfusion.
The NBA Patient Blood Management Guidelines Module 1 - Critical Bleeding/Massive Transfusion is the first of six patient blood management modules being developed to replace the NHMRC/Australasian Society of Blood Transfusion (ASBT) Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Use of Blood Components (2001). Future modules under development by NBA will address peri-operative, medical, critical care, obstetric and paediatric patient blood management.
The guideline and accompanying documents can be accessed from the NBA and also from the NHMRC Clinical Practice Guidelines Portal .

Australian Infection Control Guidelines

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) recently released the Australian Infection Control Guidelines: preventing and managing infection in healthcare (the Guidelines) on behalf of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. The Guidelines will inform clinicians, ancillary staff and administrators about the core principles of infection control in health care delivery. These guidelines provide recommendations that outline the critical aspects of infection prevention and control. The recommendations were developed using the best available evidence and consensus methods by the Infection Control Steering Committee. They have been prioritised as key areas to prevent and control infection in a healthcare facility.

The Living End

Hospitals, as much as relatives and friends, can find it very hard to let go, writes intensive care specialist Ken Hillman. Ken Hillman is professor of intensive care at the University of New South Wales and has written an essay on the topic for Inside Story.