An increasing number of hospital and health services are collating, storing and utilising medical and nursing records in electronic databases. These databases are usually protected with individualised passwords which can be monitored and checked to preserve patients’ privacy and ensure ...

The healthcare industry is quickly expanding, with longer Australian life expectancies and a growing population lifting demand for skilled nursing clinicians. However, much of this demand is not being met in the bush and more funding and training is needed ...

Fred was a resident with Alzheimer’s disease living at one of our aged care homes. He was a quiet man; in fact, Fred had not spoken for years. Like many people with dementia he became agitated and upset, particularly around ...

The Royal Commission into Aged Care needs to go beyond the urgent problems of residential aged care to look at the full formal system of care and support. We need to ensure we can increase staffing levels in residential care ...

A Red Cross field hospital in the heart of the world’s biggest series of refugee camps is the only 24-hour emergency facility to service close to a million people. The morning call to prayer wakes me up at 5.30. I ...

In the emergency department, the ‘bat phone’ is reserved for urgent referrals of incoming patients. One busy afternoon, the bat phone rang to advise that a four-year-old boy had fallen off a motorbike.* He'd ridden over a river bank and ...

There is an obvious employer expectation and condition of employment that when nurses are at work they are awake and not sleeping. After all, the employer is paying for the time that the nurse is at work. This rule does ...

Job opportunities for nurses are growing faster than the workforce as a whole, and nurses with postgraduate qualifications will reap the greatest rewards as the health industry expands and becomes more complex. The evolution of the industry is being driven ...

Queensland is known as the Sunshine State. Its hot, humid summers and cool, dry winters make it an attractive place to live. Given the beautiful climate, outdoor recreation is promoted and often includes surfing and swimming. And there are endless ...

Once a patient assumes an in-patient status in a hospital, it thereby creates a duty of care concerning protection of the patient from foreseeable acts of harm. Liability is not potentially limited to acts of harm committed by staff and/or ...