January 28, 2009 – 8:37 pm
Professor Chris Baggoley, Chief Executive of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, sent this email in response to my recent post about the complexity of factors which contribute to errors in the media and health care industries:
Hello Melissa
While acknowledging that the consequences of actual harm arising from an opinion piece in [...]
January 27, 2009 – 3:12 pm
In a recent Crikey article, journalist Margaret Simons investigated how The Age newspaper came to publish a column “in error”.
Reading about the many factors and circumstances – both systemic and individual – that contributed to the error – I was again reminded of how the media and health industries have so much in common, at [...]
January 27, 2009 – 9:51 am
Some hundreds of patients with depression, anxiety and other disorders have received online treatment using a sophisticated computerised cognitive behaviour therapy program from the St Vincent’s Clinical Research Unit for Anxiety Disorders in Sydney. The treatment is effective in the short and long term, according to Gavin Andrews, professor of psychiatry at St Vincent’s Hospital. [...]
January 19, 2009 – 7:12 am
Some more comments on the recent Crikey story…
Glenn Gardner, Professor of Clinical Nursing at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Health Service District and Queensland University of Technology:
When we seek help in a hospital emergency department, we do so expecting timely and expert care.
Research tells us that patients do not differentiate medical care from nursing care [...]
January 15, 2009 – 6:04 pm
Some interesting responses to my Crikey story today about the AMA and turf wars:
John Menadue, Centre for Policy Development:
For years, it has been clear to me that there is widespread agreement in the ‘health industry’ about the need for reform. That widespread agreement covers such issues as the priority for primary care, the fragmentation of [...]
January 14, 2009 – 5:13 pm
Tim Gill, executive officer of the Australian and NZ Obesity Society, has some comments to add to the recent Crikey story on the so-called “obesity epidemic myth”.
“Tim Olds’ analysis of childhood obesity trends raises more questions than it answers and is similar to previous analyses by the same author on dietary intake and physical activity [...]
January 14, 2009 – 4:50 pm
In December, I wrote this story for Crikey about the practice of ghostwriting – whereby undisclosed parties, typically drug companies, are involved in writing and orchestrating medical journal articles. Croakey contributors subsquently noted some of the evidence suggesting this practice is worryingly widespread.
Now Dr Chris Jordens, from the University of Sydney’s Centre for Values, Ethics [...]
January 12, 2009 – 3:16 pm
To get a broader perspective on the problems of the Australian health system, take a moment to read this disturbing account from The Lancet’s Global Health Network.
Hatem Shurrab, an aid worker with Islamic Relief, describes how close Gaza hospitals are to collapsing and being unable to provide even basic services to the injured and wounded.
The [...]
January 12, 2009 – 2:35 pm
Now that we’ve finished salivating over the presidential pecs,it’s time to turn to more cerebral issues, like what might Barack Obama’s election mean for global health?
Two European public health experts – Bernd Rechel and Martin McKee from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine – ponder this question in an editorial in the British [...]
January 9, 2009 – 11:25 am
It’s entirely understandable that politicians and bureaucrats are keen to sell new policies that they’re developing or implementing. They want to persuade us, and perhaps even themselves, that they’re doing the right thing.
But perhaps there should be a mandatory step in the process: to insist that the question be asked of any new program or [...]
