Listen Now

Drew was a Policeman who moved into being a financial adviser. He is an author and speaker who specialises in helping successful business owners and their families, protect themselves, their purpose and their business mission. He also runs "Unusual Risks", a niche organisation providing life insurance for clinicians who are dealing with the risk of transmissable diseases, such as HIV, as well as unique products for diabetics. 

It seems almost redundant to say that communication pathways for the public between any emergency provider and the public have evolved since the invention of the telephone. Yet, we remain exceptionally reliant on the phone network, even in the digital age. In this short episode, I talk about some of the challenges that lie ahead for emergency service communication centres in the evolving and diverse world of digital communication.

Ageing population, hospital diversion, "sandwich generation" All aspects of modern society but often the children of the aged are the ones who really need help. Phill Tsingos talks about the heart break of "loving neglect" and the need to help the elderly stay at where they want to be: at home. About my guest: Phill Tsingos is a Registered Nurse for more than twenty years, with experience worked in intensive care, emergency, children, rural and remote, community care as well as with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.  Phill has worked directly with patients but also has had extensive experience as a manager as well as a nurse educator.  Phill has worked here in Australia as well as abroad in the UK.  These days, he thrives on the daily challenges of working in an emergency department. Phill’s mission is everyone should have the best quality of life possible. He has made caring for people a life long devotion (perhaps even an obsession). Seeing many people suffer as a result of inadequate care at home, Phill wanted to be the prevention not the cure. Phill recently won a national business award for his work with iNightingale

"Ambos in Action" was produced and broadcast by ABC Canberra radio in 1997, and later broadcast on ABC Radio National. It follows members of the ACT Ambulance Service on a typical night for the paramedic crews working in Canberra. In this final episode, a young woman is short of breath and calls an ambulance. Also, one of the crew talks about what makes a good ambo.

"Ambos in Action" was produced and broadcast by ABC Canberra radio in 1997, and later broadcast on ABC Radio National. It follows members of the ACT Ambulance Service on a typical night for the paramedic crews working in Canberra. The ACT Ambulance Service respond to a multi-vehicle accident on Northbourne Avenue in this recording from 1997.

"Ambos in Action" was produced and broadcast by ABC Canberra radio in 1997, and later broadcast on ABC Radio National. It follows members of the ACT Ambulance Service on a typical night for the paramedic crews working in Canberra. This episode looks at the paramedic response to the collapse of an elderly man.

"Ambos in Action" was produced and broadcast by ABC Canberra radio in 1997, and later broadcast on ABC Radio National. It follows members of the ACT Ambulance Service on a typical night for the paramedic crews working in Canberra. This episode follows a crew responding to a toddler with breathing difficulties.

"Ambos in Action" was produced and broadcast by ABC Canberra radio in 1997, and later broadcast on ABC Radio National. It follows members of the ACT Ambulance Service on a typical night for the paramedic crews working in Canberra. This episode concentrates on what happens in the Ambulance Triple Zero Emergency Call Centre, or ComCen.

Craig chats with Assistant Professor Jamie Ranse about the clinical and operational planning that sits behind mass gatherings. Using World Youth Day 2008 as a case study, Jamie discusses the need to engage a cross section of health and healthcare providers. International perspectives are also discussed with the underlying messaging being that progress toward improved health planning at mass gathers relies on shared definitions and data points and moving away from purely descriptive journal articles to articles. About my guest: Assistant Professor Jamie Ranse of the University of Canberra has a keen professional and personal interest in the area of disaster and mass gathering health. He is currently undertaking a PhD exploring the experience of nurses who participate in disasters. He is an Associate Editor for the Australasian Emergency Nursing Journal, holding the disaster portfolio and peer-reviews a number of national and international journals relating to disaster and primary health care. He remains engaged in the clinical setting as a casual RN at the Emergency Department of Calvary Health Care ACT.

Prof Paul Middleton discussed what the future of pre-hospital ambulance care. And it isn’t ‘go faster’! While reflecting upon advances in clinical care, changes to operational responses and response times. Paul also reflects upon telehealth and the ground breaking Take Heart Australia organisation. About my Guest: Clinical Associate Professor Paul Middleton is a specialist in prehospital and emergency medicine, and has worked in critical care retrieval in helicopters, fixed wing aircraft and ground ambulances. Paul is Clinical Associate Professor in the Discipline of Emergency Medicine at the University of Sydney; Conjoint Associate Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering and Conjoint Senior Lecturer in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales. He is a Fellow of the UK College of Emergency Medicine and the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, and has published clinical research on non-invasive assessment of illness, pre-hospital research and clinical trials, epidemiology, health economics and critical patient transport.  He is Chair of the Australian Resuscitation Council NSW branch, was the convener of the first “Resus At The Park” conference in May 2014, and also recently launched Take Heart Australia, a public health advocacy and educational organisation designed to include all Australians in a mission to increase survival from sudden cardiac arrest. Paul has taught hundreds of doctors and nurses how to treat serious illness and injury in adults and children, and is Director of the Australian Institute for Clinical Education, which develops clinical educational courses for the health industry. He is the lead author of What To Do When Your Child Gets Sick (2010) published by Allen and Unwin, and is the principal of SavingLittleLives, a company founded to teach parents and other carers how to recognise sick and injured children and a leader in the Take Heart Australia organisation Former roles include Medical Director of the Ambulance Service of NSW, inaugural Director of the Ambulance Research Institute and Chief Medical Officer to St John Ambulance, Australia. About the Podcast Host: Craig, is a health and emergency service management specialist with more than 30 years experience in operational management, emergency planning, health service delivery and service redevelopment. More information can be found at www.cahooper.com 

For more information, visit www.operationalhealth.com Make no mistake, the "DREAM Collaboration" is an exciting and unique approach to examining the Emergency patient that will make dramatic impact upon the future of emergency healthcare. DREAM is an abbreviation for "Distributed Research in Emergency and Acute Medicine". By using a fundamentally new approach, it seeks to explore a problem which is still only partially recognised or appreciated. That is; to expand the epidemiology knowledge of emergency medicine patients and practice in a medical specialty that annually serves the equivalent of a third of the Australian population. One of the unique approaches used is DREAM's truly collaborative method of engaging not only of institutions and health organisations, but of individual clinical researchers, and provide education, mentoring and assistance in the pursuit of academic career progress. About my Guest: Clinical Associate Professor Paul Middleton is a specialist in prehospital and emergency medicine, and has worked in critical care retrieval in helicopters, fixed wing aircraft and ground ambulances. Paul is Clinical Associate Professor in the Discipline of Emergency Medicine at the University of Sydney; Conjoint Associate Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering and Conjoint Senior Lecturer in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales. He is a Fellow of the UK College of Emergency Medicine and the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, and has published clinical research on non-invasive assessment of illness, pre-hospital research and clinical trials, epidemiology, health economics and critical patient transport. He is the Chair and Principal Investigator of the DREAM Collaboration. He is Chair of the Australian Resuscitation Council NSW branch, was the convener of the first “Resus At The Park” conference in May 2014, and also recently launched Take Heart Australia, a public health advocacy and educational organisation designed to include all Australians in a mission to increase survival from sudden cardiac arrest. Paul has taught hundreds of doctors and nurses how to treat serious illness and injury in adults and children, and is Director of the Australian Institute for Clinical Education, which develops clinical educational courses for the health industry. He is the lead author of What To Do When Your Child Gets Sick (2010) published by Allen and Unwin, and is the principal of SavingLittleLives, a company founded to teach parents and other carers how to recognise sick and injured children. Former roles include Medical Director of the Ambulance Service of NSW, inaugural Director of the Ambulance Research Institute and Chief Medical Officer to St John Ambulance, Australia.

Dr Martin Sosa is a General Surgeon who has been deployed on multiple missions with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders). However, over his work with MSF, he found himself in emergency situations were surgery was not the only medical specialty required. Martin is an example of the work being done by organisations, like MSF, that rapidly adapt to the immediate clinical need, in extremely difficult operational environments.  I spoke with Martin about his experiences in Yemen and South Sudan shortly before his MSF deployment to Central African Republic. Dr Martin Sosa is a General Surgeon with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders), who originally hails from Argentina. His career in relief and disaster work commenced (pre-MSF) with a deployment to Haiti following the disastrous earthquake. Since then, he was had many extended missions in locations such as Yemen and South Sudan.

It's a new season of Operational Health, where I examine emergency medical services, from ambulance to the hospital. Talking to paramedics, nurses and doctors providing health and disaster medicine from remote health care, war zones and prehospital.  Series two will start to be released in early June with new episodes every two weeks. For thirty weeks, join my conversations with people providing healthcare around the globe.

Social media in all its forms infiltrates our lives on a daily basis. Whether it be FaceBook, YouTube, Blogs, Twitter, Pinterest or some other platform, social media is a modern communication device for many people. Reporter Rachel Worsley and I explore the use of Social Media by healthcare professionals, from patient engagement through to providing personalised clinical advice. The perceptions of national lead organisations, such as AHPRA (the Australian Health Professional Registration Authority) are also discussed as we uncover misunderstandings around the use of social media.  About my guest: Rachel Worsley is a multimedia journalist, with a special interest in health and medicine, law and current affairs. Her work includes articles for “Specialist Updates”, a series of online newsletters and websites aimed at various medical specialists updating news in their relevant field, prolific reporter for the GP news website 6minutes.com.au and assisting budding radio journalists on Sydney current affairs show Razors Edge at Sydney’s 2SER 107.3FM. She has been published in the Sydney Morning Herald, The (Melbourne) Age, WA Times and Brisbane Times.

In 2014, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs funded a “Think Paper” about the use of new media in disasters. A subsequent meeting in Doha identified that standardisation of social media hashtags and enabling GPS during crisis could have major impact on integrating big-crisis data into emergency response going forward. Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook and other new media (including YouTube) are all in the mix, but it is twitter that is certainly the most immediate. It is from that foundation that Roxanne Moore wrote “Hashtag standards for Emergencies” with Andrej Verity. I explore the research with Roxanne and the discuss the impact of the research. We reflect on the use of social media in emergency situations, such as the Mumbai bombings, Arab Spring and Philipine floods, and how to tranform tweets into usable information for responding and deploying emergency resources. The publication “Hashtag standards for Emergencies” was developed by UN OCHA Field Information Services with the support of the OCHA Policy Development and Studies Branch (PDSB) and written by Roxanne Moore and Andrej Verity, with advice and support from Patrick Meier and Sarah Vieweg, from Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI). About My Guest: Roxanne has extensive experience in non-profit management across a variety of causes including children's education, emergency response, homelessness, and politics. In August 2011 I moved internationally to Bangkok, Thailand and, within two months of moving abroad she was evacuated from her apartment due to rising flood water.  In August 2013 she began my Master in Public Health (MPH) in Global Epidemiology at Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH), Emory University, focusing on her interest at the intersection of Complex Humanitarian Emergencies and Data Science. She had previously worked with the CDC in innovative scientific reporting, as well as OCHA in social media policy standards and development of a nonprofit business proposal for the Digital Humanitarian Foundation. Her current role is Ebola Coordinator for the "Digital Humanitarian Network (DHN)"

More info at www.operationalhealth.com In Part Two of my conversation with Dr Laurie Wilson from the Australasian Telehealth Society, we discuss issues surrounding the cross-over between technological and organisational change in healthcare. Laurie reflects upon the potential future of a healthcare system empowered by telehealth and the need for a national telehealth strategy.   About my guest: Laurie Wilson received the PhD degree in Cosmic Ray Physics from the University of Sydney in 1973, and after working in Atmospheric Physics at the University of Oxford and a short Senior Tutorship at the University of Sydney, joined the Ultrasonics Laboratory of the Australian Department of Health, where he gained an international reputation for research in medical ultrasound. After this group transferred into CSIRO he broadened his interest to encompass a range of applications of medical technologies to healthcare.He has taken leading role in several health-related projects in CSIRO, including image analysis and visualisation, telehealth and home telecare. He coordinated two broadband telehealth reearch projects in Sydney West and Tasmania respectively, which have influenced a number of subsequent telehealth initiatives in Australia. He also set up the ICT Centre's Human Factors group. Since retirement from full time work in April 2008 he has taken up a post-retirement fellowship. In 2008 he founded the Australasian Telehealth Society and is currently its Honorary Secretary. (Laurie Wilson's bio is from CSIRO Staff Profiles website).

More info at www.operationalhealth.com The Australasian Telehealth Society defines telehealth as "enabling health care services and related processes delivered over distance, using information and communication technologies*. While the Australian Department of Health uses the International Organisation for Standardisation definition: ‘use of telecommunication techniques for the purpose of providing telemedicine, medical education, and health education over a distance”. It is against the backdrop of e-health and electronic patient care records that Craig speaks with Dr Laurie Wilson, formally of the CSIRO and University of Western Sydney. Dr Wilson and I explore what telehealth actually is, the growth and development of Telehealth (telemedicine) in Australia and how his participatory design approach was used in a landmark virtual critical care telehealth project About my guest: Laurie Wilson received the PhD degree in Cosmic Ray Physics from the University of Sydney in 1973, and after working in Atmospheric Physics at the University of Oxford and a short Senior Tutorship at the University of Sydney, joined the Ultrasonics Laboratory of the Australian Department of Health, where he gained an international reputation for research in medical ultrasound. After this group transferred into CSIRO he broadened his interest to encompass a range of applications of medical technologies to healthcare. He has taken leading role in several health-related projects in CSIRO, including image analysis and visualisation, telehealth and home telecare. He coordinated two broadband telehealth reearch projects in Sydney West and Tasmania respectively, which have influenced a number of subsequent telehealth initiatives in Australia. He also set up the ICT Centre's Human Factors group. Since retirement from full time work in April 2008 he has taken up a post-retirement fellowship. In 2008 he founded the Australasian Telehealth Society and is currently its Honorary Secretary. (Laurie Wilson's bio is from CSIRO Staff Profiles website).

More info can be found at the Operational Health website Used by all Ambulance Services in Eastern Australia, VACIS brings ePCRs into the prehospital environment. Ambulance Victoria's Solution Delivery Manager, Noelle McCabe, discusses the development of a mobile patient care record and reveals some of the difficulties along the way.   VACIS, the Victorian Ambulance Clinical Information System, is a patient care record computer application specifically designed for Australian ambulance services. Although originating in Victoria, it is used in every ambulance service in Australia’s eastern states, covering 80% the Australian population. VACIS provides: - An evidence base to clinical practice - Data to establish clinical procedure and guideline compliance levels of ambulance paramedics - Valid and consistent patient data, from call to discharge, for ambulance led clinical research.   About my guest Noelle McCabe is currently the Solution Delivery Manager for Ambulance Victoria and has been there throughout the life of VACIS. Since 2002, Noelle has been heavily involved with the collaboration that has been the backbone of VACIS development, from paramedic through to organisation and developers. 

More info at www.operationalhealth.com With a background in pre-hospital emergency care, and now a pilot, Adam Starr is a voluntary pilot for Angel Flight. Adam Starr talks about Angel Flight and its role in supporting healthcare service delivery in rural Australia.   About my guest: Adam Starr has a background working in a number of different states and organisations in the pre-hospital emergency care industry before moving into the aviation industry. Adam is a well-known Instructor, former paramedic and a helicopter pilot. He now spends a large amount of time with both the Griffith University Aviation program as a lecturer, and with Air Services Australia in the Brisbane Airport base. His well-rounded knowledge of airspace regulations and aerospace theory, as well as a passion for flying, make him a valued ambassador of the aviation community (link).   Adam Starr began his change of vocation from Paramedic to Aviation by completing a Private Pilot Licence (aeroplane) and a Commercial Pilot Licence (helicopter), continuing on to a Commercial Pilot Licence (aeroplane). Adam also accepted the position of lecturer at Griffith University for the Bachelor of Aviation. He is also a Cirrus Standardised Instructor Pilot.   He has been training people since 1988  in various realms including the Army, Ambulance/ Paramedicine, TAFE, University, Air Traffic Control, Flight instruction and instrument training as well as adult education.   Adam can be contacted via his website at http://www.starraviation.com.au

Full show notes can be found at www.operationalhealth.com About this episode: The experience of working in an Emergency Department is often a daunting one for Doctors and Ward Nurses alike. Welcome to the curious world of Triage! In this special Christmas edition of the podcast, Zuleika Khan explores the sometimes cruel, occasionally pleasant, always stressful world of emergency medicine, nightshift and how she has evolved from performing healthcare to performing cabaret. Huh? Cabaret?  About my guest: Zule Khan is a practicing Division 1 Registered Nurse and specialised in Orthopaedic and Trauma acute care nursing. She has worked in some of Australia's busiest hospitals, including the Alfred Hospital (Melbourne) and in some of the most demanding Emergency Departments and Orthopaedic Units.  She started ballet lessons at the tender age of 3 at the Penrith Royal Academy of Ballet, graduating to The Castlereagh School of Theatrical Dance where her mentor Jenny Attrill noticed that she had a knack for acting, comedy and generally 'being a clown'! This inspired her to immerse herself in the art of performance - acting, singing, dancing and writing for both the stage and the screen. Zule has studied at NIDA in Sydney, DW301 and VCA in Melbourne and owes her vocal technique and comedy savvy to her mentor and singing/acting teacher Sally Bourne, who also directed and wrote additional material for her one woman show TRIAGE! A Nursing Cabaret. Zule can be contacted via her website at http://zuleikakhan.com