The Emergency Department is the entrance point for children with first presentations and acute exacerbations of illnesses and injuries ultimately cared for by all hospital clinical departments. For many conditions the evidence base for acute diagnosis and management is limited, and research in this area can be challenging because of service priorities.
Simulation-based education has been shown to be an effective educational tool, particularly for adults. The RCH Simulation Program, which has been running now for 2 years, facilitates a wide array of simulation-based education programs across the hospital – from ‘First 3 Minute’ training, to more complex immersive simulation to address deteriorating patients, teams working together, and communication skills. During this Grand Round, you will hear how the RCH Simulation Program has developed, hear about the RCH Inter-professional Simulation Fellowship Program, why simulation-based education works, and impact it has had on the Melbourne Children’s Campus.
Blunt head trauma is a common presentation in the pediatric ED. Although some children have overt signs of traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), many have minor head trauma with no or subtle signs of TBI. Among children with apparently minor blunt head trauma, identifying those who indeed have TBI is challenging. Over the past decade there has been increasing use of computed tomography (CT) to avoid missing children with TBI.
Education remains one of the most powerful social determinants of adult health outcomes. Yet in 2015 one in five children started school with areas of developmental vulnerability. Paediatric health care providers play a vital role in understanding the impact of developmental variation and illness on school participation and engagement.
Genomic technologies have the potential to transform how we deliver healthcare. Genomic medicine promises better patient outcomes and a more efficient health system through rapid diagnosis, early intervention, prevention and targeted therapies. However, there are significant hurdles that need to be overcome to implement genomics into routine clinical practice.
It is less than a year until the RCH Epic EMR “goes live”. The transition to a proper electronic record with an extensive suite of functionality will mean many changes in the way we work. These changes will be bigger than those we experienced in the move to the new hospital. The EMR represents a great opportunity to improve the care we deliver and our ability to support research. It is a major investment and obviously we want to use it well.
Digital health is an umbrella term for the application of ICT and technology in healthcare, incorporating mobile health apps, wearable technologies such as the fitbit and Google glass, web-based research and clinical decision support tools, and the re-purposing of gaming technologies, such as the Xbox kinect, for health applications.
To secure Australia’s health and economy into the future, the talents of women in science are vital. In biology, over half of all Bachelor of Science and PhD graduates are women, yet there is only one in ten women at the senior levels of our universities and research institutes
showcasing the current work on the Melbourne Children’s campus and especially the start of a major randomised clinical trial.
The presentation will explore the global standing of our health care system and the areas where we are leading or falling behind. Similarly our research performance will be examined relative to international exemplars.
