{"id":4396,"date":"2014-06-10T07:18:03","date_gmt":"2014-06-09T21:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=4396"},"modified":"2015-04-29T11:50:16","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T01:50:16","slug":"considering-kids-in-an-ageing-population","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/considering-kids-in-an-ageing-population\/","title":{"rendered":"Considering kids in an ageing population"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Child<\/a>Like most developed countries, Australia\u2019s population is ageing.\u00a0 Because of this, plenty of attention is being focused nationally on ensuring the healthcare needs of adults and seniors will be provided for into the future.<\/p>\n

But what does this mean for the health of Australia\u2019s children?\u00a0 This is a question The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital (RCH) is determined to answer, through a collaborative research project with Professor Gary Freed from The University of Melbourne School of Population and Global Health.<\/p>\n

Professor Freed says that while the proportion of adults in Australia is growing, we mustn\u2019t forget that the number of children in Australia is also growing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cChildren may represent a smaller proportion of the overall population than they did, say, 20 years ago, but their absolute number is still increasing.\u00a0 What\u2019s more, we have more children alive today with chronic illness than we\u2019ve ever had, because premature babies are saved and kids with heart disease are saved,\u201d Professor Freed says.<\/p>\n

Professor Freed is heading up research across four different Victorian hospitals \u2013 the Royal Children\u2019s, Austin, Northern and Sunshine hospitals \u2013 with support from the Victorian Department of Health and three Medicare locals, to understand the healthcare habits of families with children, and determine where the system may be failing families and how it can be improved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe RCH Emergency Department (ED) is experiencing unprecedented demand, with 10 per cent more patients presenting to Emergency this year compared to last year.\u00a0 Other hospitals in Victoria are experiencing similar increases in paediatric ED attendances,\u201d said Professor Freed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have all sorts of anecdotal evidence for why this increase is occurring \u2013 lack of GP appointment availability, a belief that hospital staff are better trained to care for children, a tendency for on-call nursing services to refer paediatric patients to hospitals, and a belief that specialist clinic waits are too long \u2013 but the jury is out on how accurate this evidence is.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue of ED volume at the RCH is very real and becoming increasingly critical with regard to being able to provide timely and efficient care to children who need it.\u00a0 But \u2018crisis\u2019 responses are not helpful.\u00a0 Too often we see hasty, irrational healthcare policy changes introduced on the basis of unproven evidence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Professor Freed is bucking the trend and doing something that hasn\u2019t been done before: he\u2019s visiting EDs and asking parents \u201cWhy are you here?\u201d<\/p>\n

The three-year study is also investigating the impact of the ageing population on the care children receive from GPs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to get a better understanding of the experience and competency of GP registrars (junior GPs) nationwide with regard to the care of children.\u00a0 Are they getting enough exposure to children during their training?\u00a0 Are they experiencing enough extended consultations involving children with chronic illness?\u201d Professor Freed said.<\/p>\n

Data will take another 12 months to collect and analyse by a research team comprising GPs, emergency physicians and paediatricians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the results are in, Victoria can begin to make evidence-based policy changes to paediatric healthcare, rather than fixing a problem we think exists, but actually doesn\u2019t,\u201d Professor Freed says.<\/p>\n

\u201cChildren are our future and we can\u2019t just pay lip service to them.\u00a0 We need to develop the right policies for everyone, children and adults alike,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How is Australia’s ageing population affecting paediatric healthcare? The RCH investigates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4396"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4399,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4396\/revisions\/4399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}