Innovative Information Technology-Powered Population Health Care Management Improves Outcomes and Reduces Hospital Readmissions and Emergency Department Visits.

Background: Patients with chronic conditions are often the most frequent users of health care. Moreover, adapting to developments in one's illness, understanding how to self-manage a chronic illness, and sharing information between primary care and specialty providers, can be a full-time job for someone with a chronic illness. In response to these challenges, Christiana Care Health System (Wilmington, Delaware) developed Care Link, an information technology (IT)-enhanced care management support to enable populations of patients to achieve better clinical outcomes at lower cost.

Improving Infusion Pump Safety Through Usability Testing.

With the recognition that the introduction of new technology causes changes in workflow and may introduce new errors to the system, usability testing was performed to provide data on nursing practice and interaction with infusion pump technology. Usability testing provides the opportunity to detect and analyze potentially dangerous problems with the design of infusion pumps that could cause or allow avoidable errors. This work will reduce preventable harm through the optimization of health care delivery.

Childhood obesity in secondary care: national prospective audit of Australian pediatric practice.

Objective: In many countries, pediatricians offer skilled secondary care for children with conditions more challenging than can readily be managed in the primary care sector, but the extent to which this sector engages with the detection and management of obesity remains largely unexplored. This study aimed to audit the prevalence, diagnosis, patient, and consultation characteristics of obesity in Australian pediatric practices.

Methods: This was a national prospective patient audit in Australia.

Physical activity and 3-year BMI change in overweight and obese children.

Objectives: Targeting physical activity (PA) is a mainstay in obesity treatment, but its BMI benefits are poorly quantified. We studied long-term predictive PA-BMI relationships in overweight/obese children presenting to primary care.

Methods: Three-year follow-up of 182 overweight/obese 5- to 10-year-olds recruited from 45 Melbourne general practices.

How training affects Australian paediatricians' management of obesity.

Objective: Secondary care could be the optimal sector for managing child and adolescent obesity, given low primary care uptake and limited tertiary services. We aimed to determine Australian paediatricians' self-reported competence and training in managing obesity and, in a linked patient-level audit, whether these predict rates of measurement and obesity diagnosis.

Design, Setting And Patients: Australian Paediatric Research Network members completed an online survey, plus a prospective patient-level audit of up to 100 consecutive consultations over 2 weeks.

Improving access to hard-to-reach services: a soft entry approach to drug and alcohol services for rural Australian Aboriginal communities.

Australian Aboriginal communities are concerned about drug- and alcohol-related harms in their communities. There are a significantly higher proportion of substance problems experienced by Aboriginal Australians than non-Indigenous Australians. Ways to address these problems are limited by racial barriers to mainstream services, especially in the rural context.

Is the adiposity rebound a rebound in adiposity?

Objective: Early adiposity rebound ([AR], when body mass index [BMI] rises after reaching a nadir) strongly predicts later obesity. We investigated whether the upswing in BMI at AR is accompanied by an increase in body fat.

Design: Community-based cohort study.

New directions in childhood obesity research: how a comprehensive biorepository will allow better prediction of outcomes.

Background: Childhood obesity is associated with the early development of diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Unfortunately, to date, traditional methods of research have failed to identify effective prevention and treatment strategies, and large numbers of children and adolescents continue to be at high risk of developing weight-related disease.

Aim: To establish a unique 'biorepository' of data and biological samples from overweight and obese children, in order to investigate the complex 'gene × environment' interactions that govern disease risk.

Comparing estimates of body fat in children using published bioelectrical impedance analysis equations.

Background: The level of body fat mass (BFM) in childhood that is associated with weight related morbidity is unclear. Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) offers an inexpensive, acceptable and portable method for measuring body composition in children. However, different equations have been derived to estimate BFM, and relationships between equations have not been explored.

The Light Time-Use Diary and preschool activity patterns: exploratory study.

Aim: To conduct an exploratory study of time-use patterns in Australian 5-year-old children, and to pilot the novel Children's Light Time-Use Diary as a potential tool for investigating relationships between children's time-use and weight status.

Methods: Subjects for the present cross-sectional study were drawn from an established longitudinal cohort and included eighty-four 5-year-old Australian children (36 males) originally recruited as infants in three local government areas of Melbourne. Children were weighed and measured, and body mass index (BMI; kg/m(2)) calculated.

Maternal concern and perceptions of overweight in Australian preschool-aged children.

Objective: To assess maternal concern about overweight in Australian preschool-aged children and factors predicting maternal concern about children's current and future weight status.

Design: Cross-sectional survey of child's body mass index and parent questionnaire.

Setting: Metropolitan Melbourne, Victoria, 2002.