Blog

Coronavirus research output, new trial developments and public health advice are evolving and escalating on a daily basis, making it hard to keep up with what's important to know. The COVID-19 experts from the DynaMed EBM Focus editorial team have analysed the current leading research and provide some answers for the hot topics and burning questions being asked by clinicians around the world.

The Queensland Digital Health Journal Club showcases current research and latest developments in digital healthcare across the world. The Journal Club provides an opportunity to share learning about digital health, stay informed about the latest developments internationally, and ensure practices are contemporary and based on the latest evidence.

Acute Rheumatic Fever (ARF) coupled with rheumatic heart disease (RHD) cause significant morbidity and premature mortality among Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. A new clinical pathway for ARF has been developed to assist clinicians recognise and manage suspected ARF in adult and paediatric patients presenting to the Emergency Department.

Australian hospital staff with self-reported “speaking-up” skills experienced less incivility and bullying from their colleagues, leading researchers to suggest that training in speaking up would help eliminate unprofessional behaviour.

With implications for healthcare employees, shift workers, especially those working permanent night shift rosters, may be at heightened risk of moderate to severe asthma, suggests research published online in the BMJ journal, Thorax. Given the prevalence of both shift work and asthma in industrialised nations, the public health implications of these findings are potentially “far-reaching,” warn the researchers.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are a leading cause of disease and injury burden for Queenslanders, with 246 people admitted to hospital for heart disease every day in 2018. Despite significant reductions in cardiovascular death rates nationally, it still amounted to approximately a quarter of all Australian deaths in 2018. Globally, CVDs are the number one cause of death, taking an estimated 17.9 million lives each year. Now a new Australian cardiology text, Problem-Based Cardiology Cases, takes a unique case-based approach to helping clinicians address this global health problem.

Many of the more than 2,000 stillbirths that occur in Australia each year are preventable through improved maternity care, according to a major new collection of peer-reviewed papers published in the journal Women and Birth. Ten papers highlight the tragedy of stillbirth in Australia, which remains a major public health problem with an enormous mortality burden and psychosocial impact on parents, families and the wider community.

The involvement of patient advocates should ensure that new Australian melanoma management guidelines are rigorously patient-focused, according to the authors of a Perspective article published by the MJA.

Remdesivir has been shown to reduce the duration of illness in patients with severe COVID-19. But what about patients with moderate disease? This EBM Focus article, from the DynaMed editorial team, provides a concise summary of clinical trials most likely to inform clinical practice.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a flood of potentially substandard research amid the rush to publish, with a string of papers retracted or under a cloud and a surge in submissions to pre-print servers where fewer quality checks are made, a leading Queensland-based ethicist has warned. This has serious implications for patients, clinicians, and potentially government policy.