Archived News for Health Sector Professionals

A report published by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has found that Australian children’s oral health as ‘improved markedly’ over the last 30 years.

The New South Wales Government has announced the formation of a new Mental Health Line to ensure that people with a mental health problem, their families and carers have access to a 24-hour support service.

The New South Wales Government has given planning approval for the construction on the new 50-bed mental health unit as part of the ongoing redevelopment of the wagga Wagga Base Hospital Redevelopment.

Health Minister Tanya Plibersek has announced that $50 million over two years will be made available to Medicare Locals – networks that support frontline health providers – to assist GPs and other health care providers to adopt and use the Gillard Government’s new eHealth records system.

Ms Plibersek said the funding was part of a package to support doctors and other health professionals to help rollout the new system.

“Family doctors co-ordinate healthcare for most patients, so we know they have an important role to play in the eHealth records system,” Ms Plibersek said.

“eHealth records will ensure doctors can access a patient’s medical information in one convenient online location, reducing errors and making diagnosis and treatment quicker and easier.”

Ms Plibersek said the funding for Medicare Locals will enable them to provide practical training to GP practices and other health care providers and to drive awareness and consumer literacy of the potential of eHealth records at a regional level.

“The practical training will include how to get the practice ready for the eHealth record including how to achieve data quality, the registration process for eHealth records, engagement and support of the practice’s patients.”

“To assist providers link up to the system, Medicare Locals also will work with other health care providers – allied health, nursing, and community based specialists – as well as with Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services, non-government organisations, professional associations and hospitals.”

The $50 million is the final piece of a support package for doctors to help rollout the new eHealth records system and is in addition to the Government’s $233.7 million investment announced in the Budget.

It complements the three other initiatives already announced, which are:

The Queensland Government has announced broad cuts to the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities (QAHC), the state’s only LGBT health and wellbeing organisation.

The Western Australian Government has announced $58.5 million in child health spending to provide free health checks and increase access to school-based health services.

The Western Australian Government has announced $5 million over two years for the formation of a new Mental Health Court Division Program, that will cater for adults and children with mental illness facing criminal charges at Perth’s Magistrates’ Court and Children’s Court.

A Deakin University study, funded by VicHealth, shows significant economic savings and health benefits could be achieved if Australian adults cut their alcohol consumption by 3.4 litres a year.

A University of Queensland researcher has discovered nine new genes that drive the development of breast cancer, taking the tally of all genes associated with breast cancer development to 40.

Published recently in Nature journal, the study is part of an international initiative to sequence the genomes of a variety of cancers. Professor Sunil Lakhani from the UQ Centre for Clinical Research along with an international team of breast cancer researchers lead by Professor Michael Stratton (Sanger Institute, UK), examined all the genes in the genomes of 100 cases of breast cancer.

Professor Sunil Lakhani said mutated cancer-causing genes (called driver genes) were different in different cancer samples, indicating that breast cancer is genetically very diverse.

“Understanding the consequences of this diversity will be important in progressing towards more rational treatment,” Professor Lakhani said.

“The idea behind the work was to establish ‘the landscape' of genetic changes in breast cancer with a view to understanding which genes drive a breast cell to become cancerous.”

“Recently, we have begun to appreciate that breast cancer is not one disease but has several different subtypes. However, what the study shows is that the diversity and differences between patients is much greater than appreciated. Although 28 of the 100 cancers had a single driver mutation, some had as many as six. There were 40 different cancer genes implicated in the development of the cancer and in 73 different combinations – almost every cancer is therefore unique.”

“It is showing us that we will have to use broad information about cancer subtypes (as we do at present in the clinic) and combine it with the unique genomic features of each patients cancer in order to provide individualised treatment plans – which will be a challenge, but hopefully will also improve outcomes by providing new opportunities to target the mutations with specific drugs.”

The research was carried out at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, one of the world's leading genome centres, located in the UK.

Planning for Victoria’s new $22.7 million Charlton Hospital has begun after the State Government appointed a team to guide the future development of the hospital.

Federal Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey has refused to support the Federal Government’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), describing it as a cruel hoax that will promote false hope before states commit to funding the scheme.

Researchers at the University of South Australia’s Ian Wark Research Institute and Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Science at Monash University have developed a way to use innovative nanotechnologies to ensure disease-controlling drugs are absorbed in the body much more efficiently.

The Health Services Union has applied for an administrator to be appointed for its troubled east branch after Acting National President of the Health Services Union, Chris Brown, announced it would comply with the Federal Court in its ruling.

The University of Adelaide has entered a partnership with the Shanxi College of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Zhendong Pharmaceutical Company to form Zhendong Australia China Centre for Molecular Traditional Chinese Medicine.

A new ‘hot floor’ will be developed at the Royal Adelaide Hospital to treat emergency patients who need to be admitted and to assist the flow of patients through the Emergency Department.

The University of Western Australia has opened the State's first laboratory to translate new scientific discoveries based on the latest research in cancer biology into new advanced pathology tests.

A new autism research centre has been launched at Griffith University’s Mt Gravatt campus.

Australian research has shown that computers can be used to identify cancer treatment targets that wouldn't otherwise have been considered.

Professor Mark Ragan from The University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), who led the research team, says they found that computational methods could be used to untangle the intricacies of cancer biology.

“Cancer is not a disease caused by single genes. Rather, it is changes to the underlying gene regulatory networks that prompt tumours to grow and spread,” he said.

“Understanding gene regulatory networks in healthy and diseased tissues is therefore critical to devising effective cancer treatments.

“These networks involve vast numbers of interactions between different molecules, making conventional experimental approaches, which are focused on individual genes, too time-consuming,” he said.

The findings came from the team's analysis of different computational methods of studying gene regulatory networks.

By contrast, computational methods can examine complex networks of interacting molecules across entire systems. The challenge for researchers is determining the accuracy of such methods.

The IMB team undertook a thorough analysis of nine different computational methods that represented a variety of approaches. They then took the method judged most effective and applied it to real ovarian cancer data.

“Our evaluation demonstrated that it's possible in some cases to use computational methods to gain insights into cancer biology.

“These methods can pinpoint targets that wouldn't otherwise have been considered, which can then be validated with laboratory experiments.”

The findings are published in the current edition of the scientific journal Genome Medicine, where it has been nominated as part of the thematic series Cancer bioinformatics: bioinformatic methods, network biomarkers and precision medicine.

The Federal Government has outlined $233.7 million in Budget spending for the continued rollout of a national eHealth system.