Category Archives: surgery

Some critical issues for clinical practice guidelines

April 27, 2009 – 10:08 am

Agnes Vitry, Senior Research Fellow, School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, University of South Australia, has sent in this detailed, thoughtful response to the recent Croakey survey on the issues surrounding the controversial, commercially-funded Australian and NZ guidelines for blood clot prevention (for more background, see previous Croakey posts).
Vitry’s comments are well worth a read:
1. [...]

By Croakey | Also posted in Hospitals, Journal articles, conflicts of interest, evidence-based issues, health & medical marketing, pharmacy, prevention | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

The guidelines controversy: what do the experts think?

April 23, 2009 – 11:18 am

Following the recent controversy about Australian and NZ guidelines for preventing blood clots, Croakey asked some relevant parties for their views on:
• whether  health departments, hospitals,  safety and quality groups be reviewing their support for these particular  guidelines in response to the concerns raised in the MJA and elsewhere?
• whether such agencies also review their [...]

By Croakey | Also posted in Hospitals, Journal articles, Media-related issues, adverse events, conflicts of interest, evidence-based issues, health & medical marketing, prevention, quality and safety of health care, trauma | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

The hijacking of medical education

April 2, 2009 – 10:17 am

Brett Forge, a physician and cardiologist from Warragul in Victoria, has sent in the
following comments regarding his inclusion on the Crikey Register of Influence:
Dear Crikey
Many thanks for the dubious honour of being included on your register of influence.
It is an inadequate way of investigating medical corruption but it may at least start a discussion on [...]

By Croakey | Also posted in Crikey register of influence, conflicts of interest, evidence-based issues, health & medical marketing, health and medical research, health ethics, private health insurance, quality and safety of health care | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Some critical questions for patient safety

March 30, 2009 – 11:56 am

Dr Patrick Bolton, Vice President, Australian Healthcare & Hospitals Association, has some further interesting points to make on surgical safety:
“The recent study which showed that the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist reduced postoperative complications by an average of 36% and resulted in a fall in the total in-hospital death rate from 1.5% to 0.8% takes one [...]

By Croakey | Also posted in Hospitals, adverse events, evidence-based issues, health reform | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

Senior surgeon supports use of safety checklist

March 30, 2009 – 11:17 am

Professor Guy Maddern, professor of surgery at the University of Adelaide, has sent in the following comment re previous posts on whether Australian hospitals should implement the WHO checklist to improve surgical safety:
“Surgery has over many years increased its range of checklists to help ensure patient safety and efficiency. Surgical instrument counts, pre-admission check lists [...]

By Croakey | Also posted in Hospitals, Uncategorized, adverse events, evidence-based issues, health reform | Tagged , , | Comments (0)