Introduction: Remote communities across Australia lack the ready access to medical care generally afforded to metropolitan populations. The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) medical chest program provides medical resources to these communities allowing medications to be dispensed in conjunction with a telehealth consulting service. More than 3000 medical chests are located throughout Australia and each year the Queensland RFDS conducts approximately 20 000 telehealth consultations. The aim of this study was to review the use of the medical chest model within the state of Queensland and to analyse changes in the medical chest program from 10 years earlier to evaluate the changing healthcare needs of remote Australian populations.
Methods: All telehealth consultations and items dispensed from the medical chests were reviewed over a 1-year period from 1 July 2013 and 30 June 2014. Items dispensed were categorised and compared to those in 2005-06 in absolute terms by one-way ANOVA and proportionately by χ2 with Fisher's exact test. Consultations using the medical chest were categorised and compared to those in 2005-06 by χ2 with Fisher's exact test.
Results: The number of telehealth consultations conducted in 2013-14 (N=20 707) was not different to the number conducted in 2005-06 (N=21 470). Fewer items were dispensed from the medical chests in 2013-14 (3936 total items) than in 2005-06 (8607 total items; p<0.0001). In the specific categories of 'burns and other dressings' and 'antihistamines', the number of individual items dispensed increased. Resources from the medical chest were used more for genitourinary system consultations and less for consultations involving specific infectious diseases; the circulation, respiratory and abdominal systems; skin diseases; injury; symptoms without a diagnosis; and following other contact with a health service.
Conclusions: The medical chests remain a vital tool for medical care of remote populations and the need for telehealth medical advice remains unchanged, although fewer items are being dispensed. The use of the medical chest for each diagnostic category of consultation has shown some variation over the past 10 years, reflective of changing patterns of accident, injury and disease.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.22605/RRH4502 | DOI Listing |
Cureus
December 2024
Internal Medicine, Mercy Health St. Vincent Medical Center, Toledo, USA.
We present a case of spontaneous hemorrhage in an emphysematous bulla, complicated by anticoagulation. Bullous emphysema is a well-recognized complication of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and a rare manifestation is hemorrhage into preexisting pulmonary bullae. A 69-year-old male patient presented to the emergency department with hemoptysis, shortness of breath, and productive cough.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRespir Med Case Rep
December 2024
Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, National Jewish Health, Denver, CO, USA.
Dendriform pulmonary ossification (DPO) is a rare condition characterized by mature bone formation in the lung. DPO has been linked to various conditions, but little is known about the link between DPO and hazardous airborne exposures. We queried research databases of military personnel evaluated for deployment-related respiratory diseases at two occupational pulmonary medicine clinics (Colorado, USA) for diagnoses of DPO, and summarized demographics, Gulf War military deployment history, medical history, and pulmonary function testing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJACC Adv
February 2025
Department of Cardiology, Beijing Anzhen Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
Background: Assessing individuals' risk of developing incident atrial fibrillation (AF) is important for making preventive and screening strategies.
Objectives: The performance of the mCHEST score for predicting incident AF has scarcely been evaluated, especially in a multi-ethnic population.
Methods: Participants from the MESA (Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis were enrolled in the present study, which involved population of different ethnicities (Caucasian, African-American, Chinese-American, and Hispanic) aged between 45 and 84 from 6 communities in the United States.
Objective: To determine whether the position of the bolster affects the access tract (supracostal/infracostal) for a superior calyceal puncture during prone PCNL and its effect on pleural complications.
Materials And Methods: It was a randomized clinical trial. Patients in whom superior calyceal puncture was done were divided into two groups by systematic sampling method, group 1 (horizontal bolster) and group 2 (vertical bolster), 50 patients in each group.
J Vasc Surg Cases Innov Tech
April 2025
Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Higashiosaka City Medical Center, Higashiosaka, Osaka, Japan.
A 69-year-old man with chest pain was diagnosed with acute type B aortic dissection with the entry tear located at distal arch and a distal aortic arch aneurysm. Therefore, we performed debranching thoracic endovascular aortic repair 2 weeks after type B aortic dissection onset. First, the graft was anastomosed to bilateral axillary arteries.
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