Back in May, the parent companies of private hospital operator Healthscope fell into receivership, burdened by A$1.6 billion in debt.
Australians living with severe mental illness continue to die around 15 years earlier than the general population. The majority of this gap is driven not by suicide but by preventable physical health conditions such as heart disease and diabetes.
New guidelines on what to eat and drink if you have chronic (long-term) constipation have been making news in recent days.
At the Medical Deans of Australia New Zealand (MDANZ) Conference on September 4-5 in Newcastle, data from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) and Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) was presented, analysing the association between medical school graduation and entry into general practice and rural generalist (GP/RG) training in 2025.
Maintaining treatment in the community, minimising admissions to hospital and shorter lengths of stay are common goals of community treatment orders. However, there is mounting evidence that too many people placed on these orders don’t experience these potential benefits. We found that any decreases in readmissions or the length of hospital stay mainly occur in people with non-affective psychoses such as schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorder and drug induced psychoses even though people with many other diagnoses are also placed on orders. The disparities in the use of these orders raise concerns over equity and whether untargeted application could be doing more harm than good.
A recently released report by the Lancet Psychiatry Physical Health Commission highlights how prescribers and patients can make evidence-based decisions in maximising benefit and minimising side-effects from psychiatric medications.
A diverse group of health system organisations from across Australia are sharing their knowledge and expertise of what works in reducing health care emissions, and where to focus next.
Recent legislation mandated uploading of radiology results to My Health Record. The currently implemented approach imposes a 7-day delay in the patient accessing their results. This article suggests re-examining the benefits and risks of such a delay.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus has caused enormous global healthcare challenges and further led to longer-term health complications for millions of infected individuals. Much remains to be learned about the virus, but one thing is clear: the SARS-CoV-2 virus can unleash widespread, systemic effects throughout the body due to its ability to cause damage to endothelial cells (termed endotheliitis). This process is associated with microvasculature dysfunction and is a major cause of the acute and chronic complications (Long-COVID-19) of the disease.
