Understanding childhood injuries in rural areas : using rural acute hospital data register to address previous data deficiencies
- Authors: Peck, Blake , Terry, Daniel , Kloot, Kate
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: EMA - Emergency Medicine Australasia Vol. 32, no. 4 (2020), p. 646-649
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: Objective: The state of childhood injury in rural areas of Victoria is poorly understood. Currently only data on those children transferred from smaller hospital settings to larger settings appear in existing government datasets, significantly underestimating the characteristics of injury. Methods: Detailed emergency presentation data (Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset [VEMD] and non-VEMD) that makes up the Rural Acute Hospital Data Register database was collected and compared among children (aged 0–14 years) who have a principal diagnosis of injury. Results: Of the 8647 episodes of care identified for injured children aged 0–14 years, 3257 children were managed initially at smaller hospitals that do not report episode data to existing datasets. Conclusions: The Rural Acute Hospital Data Register database captures the presentations at low-resource sites and highlights as much as a 35% deficit in the data that is currently available to inform injury prevention and safety initiatives in Victoria. © 2020 Australasian College for Emergency Medicine
Twice-daily moisturizer application for skin tear prevention among older adults in acute care
- Authors: Mornane, Carolyn , Peck, Blake , Terry, Daniel , Ryan, Michael
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Advances in skin & wound care Vol. 34, no. 2 (2021), p. 1-4
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: OBJECTIVE: To examine the effectiveness of twice-daily moisturizer application for patients admitted to an acute care setting on reducing the incidence of skin tear (ST) injuries. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This prospective, nonrandomized, case-control study identified an experimental and control ward equivalent in demography and patient acuity in a large hospital in regional Victoria, Australia. Patients 70 years or older admitted to the wards were invited to participate. INTERVENTION: Twice-daily application of a commercially available skin and body lotion to the arms and legs of participants. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The incidence of ST in the experimental and control settings in the pre-, intra-, and posttrial periods. MAIN RESULTS: Although a decrease in ST incidence was observed over the study period (n = 128), this decrease was not significant pre- (median = 2.16, n = 73), intra- (median = 2.16, n = 73), or postintervention (median = 2.16, n = 69; χ[2, 152] = 0.502, P = .778). Similarly, there was no significant difference between wards (median = 9.86 [n = 152] vs median = 13.14 [n = 177]; U = 42.50, z = -1.198, r = 0.358, P = .231). CONCLUSIONS: The moisturizer in this study did not have a direct influence on the frequency of STs in the study population, although the data would suggest an intermittent reduction in ST incidence. The authors postulate that this was correlated with behavior change effects from the study. Copyright © 2021 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.
Type 2 diabetes mellitus management : a retrospective study in rural general practice
- Authors: Wyett, Ruby , Peck, Blake , Terry, Daniel
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Advances in Diabetes and Metabolism Vol. 7, no. 1 (), p. 1-7
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) is a chronic, progressive metabolic disease that is an international epidemic. General Practitioners (GPs) are the cornerstones of T2DM management. The aim of this study was to determine the scope of care and management of patients with T2DM within General Practice, while highlighting domains of success and areas where improvement can be made. Demographic and laboratory cross sectional data were collected by examining electronic patient records at one rural General Practice to address the aims of the study. Data included key management parameters of Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate (eGFR), microalbuminuria, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, in addition to age, sex, and residential postcode. Further, data regarding the use of insulin, antihypertensive medications and lipid-lowering medications were collected and analyzed. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used and significance was determined at p