Measles Alerts
Queensland Health reports that the state has been experiencing regular outbreaks of Measles this year - to date there have been 66 confirmed cases. The latest potentially infectious person had been in the Redcliffe and Kawana Waters areas towards the end of October. NSW and Victoria's last known confirmed cases were in August-September of this year while the other states haven't reported any confirmed cases recently.
Measles begins with symptoms such as fever, tiredness, cough, runny nose and red inflamed eyes with the symptoms usually becoming more severe over three days.
Children should receive two doses of measles vaccine at 12 months and four years of age - refer to the National Immunisation Program Schedule.
Australia's Response to Ebola Threat
Professor Lyn Gilbert has been appointed Australia's Ebola Tsar to spearhead the country's response to the Ebola threat. Professor Gilbert is an expert in infectious diseases at Sydney University and her role will be to assess, and if required, overhaul infection control in Australian hospitals ... read more
Queensland's One-Stop Shop for Safety and Workers' Compensation
A new website has been developed which combines the websites of Workplace Health and Safety Qld; WorkCover Qld; the Electrical Safety Office; and the Worker's Compensatory Regulator (formerly Q-COMP). While each organisation will remain in its current role, there is now one dedicated phone number to call (1300 362 128) and one website which will give access to all the information required for workers' safety and compensation ... read more
Changes to Attract More Doctors to Regional Australia
The government has announced an overhaul of the workforce classification system in an effort to ease regional rural and remote doctor shortages. They will move to a new District of Workforce Shortage (DWS) system that will use up-to-date Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) population data as well as recent medical services data to identify under-serviced areas - read the Government's Media Release
Expert Review of Medicines and Medical Devices Regulation
An independent review of the regulation of medicines and medical devices was announced by the government recently. An Expert Panel will examine Australia's regulatory framework for therapeutic goods and will release a discussion paper and is encouraging interested people to contribute their ideas - read the Government's Media Release or if you would like to know more email the Review Secretariat medicines.review@health.gov.au
National Asthma Strategy
The government will engage the National Asthma Council and provide $200,000 in funding to develop and implement a new National Asthma Strategy - asthma affects more than two million Australians and this new strategy will address the impact that asthma has - read the Government's Media Release
Medical Benefits Schedule (MBS) Online
The 1 November 2014 MBS data files (ASCII and XML) are now available to download and a description of the changes can be found on the MBS Online website ... read more.
Accreditation is one of the best ways to identify areas of your practice that may need improving. 
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