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Nurses have been “overlooked and under-used” in hospital antimicrobial stewardship programmes (ASPs), according to US researchers. A study, conducted at a facility run by Jefferson Health in New Jersey, suggested that ASPs were strengthened by educating nurses about antimicrobial stewardship and obtaining their “buy-in”.

High tech treatment of open leg wounds is no better than using regular dressings, a new research study suggests.

The study, “Effect of Negative Pressure Wound Therapy vs Standard Wound Management on 12-Month Disability Among Adults With Severe Open Fracture of the Lower Limb - The WOLLF Randomized Clinical Trial” published in Journal of the American Medical Association (available on CKN), found that patient recovery was the same whether a sophisticated Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT) device was used or just a standard dressing.

In Australia, around 250,000 people are currently diagnosed with epilepsy – that’s over one per cent of the population so chances are most people know someone with the condition. While epilepsy is common it is widely misunderstood. For example, the majority of people relate epilepsy to convulsive seizures, but it can take many forms and affects people very differently. Epilepsy is a neurological disorder and seizures are caused by a disruption of the electrical activity in the brain.

With 32 years of nursing experience, Dr Isabelle Skinner will soon represent more than 20 million nurses worldwide when she takes up her appointment as the chief executive officer of the International Council of Nurses (ICN).

While the Maroons are licking their wounds today after going down fighting in the State of Origin opener, spitting chips at some questionable refereeing decisions ("we was robbed!"), it’s timely to ask whether there are any healing benefits in licking actual injuries.

In 2016, the European Union approved a new data privacy law called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which applies to all organisations that collect the personal data of EU citizens. While not directly affecting CKN, the international organisations providing content and services to CKN, such as EBSCO, Eduserv (Open Athens), Elsevier, BMJ, JAMA, Micromedex (IBM Watson Health), Springer, Taylor & Francis, Wiley etc have had to implement privacy protection and data handling policies and practices in line with the new European regulation.

World No Tobacco Day is recognised around the world every year on 31 May. The day is set aside to raise awareness about the devastating health effects of tobacco use and exposure, and is a day to encourage people to quit smoking or at least try a 24 hour period of abstinence from tobacco use. This year’s theme is tobacco and heart disease, aiming to increase awareness of the link between tobacco smoking, heart disease and other cardiovascular diseases (CVD), including stroke.

Excess weight is the largest cause of ill health and early death in Queensland, causing 8.5% of the total health burden. That's hardly surprising, with two thirds of Queensland adults being overweight or obese. Poor diet, physical inactivity, overweight and obesity all significantly contribute to poor health, chronic diseases and reduced life expectancy in Queenslanders (Overweight and Obesity Prevention Strategy). Now a simple score based on the food people eat could help clinicians predict patients’ risk of becoming overweight and ensure they get the right support and advice, say Spanish researchers who undertook a major long-term study, presented at this year's European Congress on Obesity (ECO) in Vienna, Austria (23-26 May).

A mainstay of hospital treatment after major surgery – the intravenous (IV) saline drip – could be revolutionised for millions of patients worldwide following the findings of new international research led by Australian anaesthetists. More than 300 million people worldwide undergo major surgery each year, and anaesthetists have fiercely debated whether to give patients more or less IV fluid during surgery and in the days following. In the last 10 to 15 years there was a move to restrict, by almost a half, the amount of fluids given to prevent complications. While small studies had previously indicated that limiting IV fluids was beneficial for patients undergoing abdominal surgery, the six year, randomised controlled RELIEF trial (or restrictive versus liberal fluid therapy in major abdominal surgery trial) proved otherwise.

One in five people in Australia suffer chronic pain. For medical professionals it can often be hard to identify exactly how much pain a patient is in, especially if they aren’t able to clearly communicate it. But in a world-first breakthrough this challenge could be a thing of the past with a test that can now identify the extent of pain, using the colour of biomarkers in the blood.