Compliance of hand washing practices: theory versus practice.

Hand washing remains an important preventative method for making the transmission of nosocomial infections redundant. Despite awareness by health workers of the practices required and of the legislation governing hand washing, the study reported here found that compliance to these procedures was quite poor. The results of two surveys distributed to health workers and direct observation by clinical staff in an aged care hospital found that 45% of health workers did not wash their hands and 24% did not change their gloves between patient consultation.

Information technology and general practice. A survey of general practitioner attitudes towards computerisation.

Aim: General practitioners in the central Sydney area were surveyed to quantify the extent of, and attitudes towards, computerisation in Australian general practice.

Method: Two surveys were mailed to all GPs in the central Sydney area, first in 1994, and again in 1996. The majority of questions in both surveys were identical.

The quality of communication between hospitals and general practitioners: an assessment.

The objective of this study was to assess the quality of communications between hospitals and general practitioners (GPs). The proportion of medical records in which the patient's general practitioner (GP) was identified, the accuracy of medications recorded in the discharge summary, the proportion of GPs who received discharge summaries, and the timeliness of receipt of discharge summaries were all evaluated. Discussions were held with all stakeholders, the literature was reviewed and GPs were surveyed to identify potential measures of quality.

Swallowing problems in the nursing home: a novel training response.

Various studies suggest that between 50% and 75% of nursing home residents have some difficulty in swallowing. Some of these residents are assessed and treated by speech pathologists, but many are managed by nursing staff without specialist input. A training program called Swallowing .

The Balmain Hospital General Practice Casualty: an alternative model of primary health care provision.

The Balmain Hospital General Practice Casualty is a unique casualty style service, staffed and run by local general practitioners. It is a joint initiative of the Central Sydney Area Health Service and the Division of General Practice, Central Sydney Area, and is jointly funded by the Area Health Service and the Commonwealth. The casemix seen and type of services provided suggest that the service is intermediate between that provided by general practitioners and that provided by emergency departments.

Review of computer usage among RACGP members.

Objective: To quantify the extent of, and attitude towards, computerisation in Australian general practice.

Design: In late 1993 a questionnaire was mailed to 638 randomly selected members of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners asking them about their experience of computerisation. One follow-up mail out was carried out six weeks later.

Double-blind, crossover placebo controlled trial of selegiline in Parkinson's disease--an interim analysis.

The response to selegiline was assessed in ten (2 females, 8 males) idiopathic parkinsonian patients with the wearing off response. Selegiline was compared to placebo in each patient in a double blind crossover study carried out over ten months. After 16 weeks of therapy selegiline significantly prolonged response to levodopa, extending response to 3 hours (p less than 0.