Antibiotics are being overused in residential aged care facilities (RACFs), and more integrated efforts to improve antibiotic prescribing practices need to be introduced, researchers say. [ + ]

Short-term medical rural placements can transform metropolitan medical student attitudes towards medical careers in the bush, a University of Melbourne study has found. [ + ]

NSQHS Standard 7: Blood and Blood Products describes actions for ensuring safe and appropriate use of blood and blood products in health services. [ + ]

NSQHS Standard 5: Patient Identification and Procedure Matching describes the systems and processes which need to be in place to correctly identify individual patients, to transfer their care using the correct identification processes and to ensure they are accurately matched to their intended care. Although patient identification and procedure matching are routine processes, risks to patient safety can arise when there is a mismatch between a given patient and components of their care (i.e. diagnostic, therapeutic or supportive). Errors which involve the wrong patient or wrong procedure can result in death or major permanent loss of function.1,2 [ + ]

Professor Heather Yeatman, President of the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA), has expressed deep sorrow at the huge loss to the public health community - and specifically to the international AIDS community – resulting from the tragedy of Malaysian Air Flight MH17. [ + ]

[caption id="attachment_8246" align="alignright" width="133"] Professor Warwick Anderson[/caption] [ + ]

Scientists have sequenced the genome and characterised the genes of the Asian liver fluke, Opisthorchis viverrini, which causes diseases that affect millions of people in Asia and is associated with a fatal bile duct cancer.  [ + ]

The need to fast track real-time prescription reporting for some drugs has been given renewed impetus in a study highlighting the increasing risks of opioid misuse. The study, “An overview of the patterns of prescription opioid use, costs and related harms in Australia”, published in the June edition of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, finds that between 1992 and 2012, opioid dispensing increased 15-fold (500,000 to 7.5 million) and the corresponding cost to the Australian government increased 32-fold ($8.5 million to $271 million). [ + ]

General Practice Registrars Australia (GPRA) has announced the candidates for the 2014 Board elections. [ + ]

News of a long-running failure in the routine x-ray reporting of Gold Coast patients’ will be the centre of an independent investigation, ordered by Queensland Health Minister, Lawrence Springborg. [ + ]

Western Australian GP, Adjunct Associate Professor Frank Jones was today announced President-elect of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) and has vowed to place general practice at the heart of public dialogue. [ + ]

Chris O'Brien Lifehouse, the first integrated Cancer Centre in Australia, has been recognised with two significant global healthcare design awards, and is one of four shortlisted health projects at the 2014 World Architecture Festival. [ + ]

Following this week’s announcement by Health Minister, The Hon Peter Dutton, regarding the legalisation of HIV self-tests in Australia, the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA) calls for a cautious introduction of these tests and a comprehensive education campaign for potential users. [ + ]

Today the use of ionising radiation for medical imaging and radiation therapy is such a core part of both diagnosis and treatment that much is taken for granted.  It is commonly seen as a small part of the total hospital experience and yet there has been an extraordinary evolution both in the technology available and the techniques used by trained practitioners. The impact of these advances is significant, with new imaging techniques being constantly applied across the medical specialties, writes David Collier. [ + ]

A new national electronic donor record system to streamline organ and tissue donation processes across Australian hospital networks has been announced by Assistant Minister for Health Fiona Nash. [ + ]