Items of Interest

The most recently issued Ministerial or departmental media releases for the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing are available on the DHA's website at: http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/Media+Centre-1.

The COPD Snapshot  Fewer Australians are dying from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and deaths have dropped more significantly among men than women, according to a report released today by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). Younger people with disability in residential aged care: 2010-11  This bulletin presents data on the Younger People with Disability in Residential Aged Care (YPIRAC) initiative, which aims to reduce the number of people with disability aged under…

The impact of media on vulnerable children and adolescents Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists 18 April, 2012 | Identifing the many positive benefits of media for children, but recognising that there are also areas of concern, this position statement discusses a broad range of potential psychological impacts of media on young people.

David Glance, Centre for Software Practice, University of Western Australia From July 1 2012, Australians will be able to register for their own Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR). At least this was what Rosemary Huxtable, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health and Ageing has reaffirmed to a Parliamentary Senate Committee. At that point, $467m will have been spent on the project. This article was first published on The Conversation. Read more here.

If you’ve a concern for the direction of health and medical research in Australia, you have until the end of this month to make a submission to the Strategic Review of Health and Medical Research. The review, which is due to produce a final report later this year, plans to conduct public consultations from April to July. Professor Doug Hilton, director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, encourages Australians…

By Dr Justin Coleman Naked Doctor aims to encourage discussion and awareness of the opportunities to do more for health by doing less. It is a compilation of articles, books and other works that highlight overdiagnosis and overtreatment. It is a project of Dr Justin Coleman, a GP who works in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health in Brisbane. He holds a Masters in Public Health, and is President of the Australasian Medical Writers Association.…

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) is urging the government to consider the establishment of new medical schools in rural and regional areas to boost the number of doctors in the countryside. The statement is well timed given the current Senate inquiry into the problems associated with supplying rural Australians with an adequate health-care workforce. This article was first published in The Conversation. Read more here. John Dwyer is Founder of the Australian Health Care Reform…

In the article below, first published by The Conversation, Hal Kendig, a Research Professor of Ageing and Health at the University of Sydney outlines some of the critical challenges and concerns about the future of aged care. Read more here. Some of the issues to watch Hal Kendig writes: The Government’s aged care reforms are a landmark for setting valuable directions for better care. It’s the first such major initiative in more than 25 years…

Sweden has shown it is possible to reduce prescribing of antibiotics. Can Australia manage similar? The National Prescribing Service is hoping so – as you may have heard, it has launched a campaign using social media and mainstream media to engage the wider community in tackling inappropriate use of these drugs. This article was published on Crikey.com.au . Read more here.

Elizabeth Savage, Professor of Health Economics at University of Technology, Sydney from The Conversation  The government finally got its bill on means-testing private health insurance rebates for high-income households through the House of Representatives this morning. Fortunately, the dire predictions about the consequences of the bill will not eventuate – here’s why. Much of the negative commentary in…read more.