Sunday 28 November 2010

Company Spotlight-Revive Clinic (Australia)

Nurse led clinics do appear to be on the increase which with the current global financial situation along with technology improving all the time then it's of no real surprise.

Revive Clinic is an Australian based network of growing (by the sound) Nurse Led Clinics:

Nurse-led clinic may open soon Australia- 8th November 2010

Anyway,I'll let the company tell their own story:

Revive Clinic - Revive Clinic is a new concept designed to give faster, more convenient access to a wide range of affordable basic healthcare and preventative care. Staffed by highly experienced nurse practitioners who are specially trained to diagnose, treat and prescribe for a wide range of minor illnesses, injuries, provide vaccinations, prescriptions, health checks and condition management and monitoring. All services are provided in collaboration with patients GP, pharmacists, allied health or specialists. Revive Clinics are also conveniently located in pharmacies where you shop.






About Revive Clinic

Revive Clinic is a new concept designed to give faster, more convenient access to a wide range of affordable basic healthcare and preventative care.

Staffed by highly experienced nurse practitioners who are specially trained to diagnose, treat and prescribe for a wide range of minor illnesses, injuries, provide vaccinations, prescriptions, health checks and condition management and monitoring. All services are provided in collaboration with patients GP, pharmacists, allied health or specialists.

Our Nurse Practitioners are able to help patients manage their health more effectively, refer for pathology, x-rays and to specialists when required. We are your support network in between visits to your GP or when you GP is unavailable. Patient’s doctors are kept up to date on any treatments provided at a Revive Clinic.

We are also conveniently located in pharmacies where you shop. Stop by anytime. No appointments are necessary.

Medicare rebates available on Revive Clinic services from 1st November 2010. Private health insurance rebates available on selected programs.

What’s a Nurse Practitioner?

Nurse practitioners are registered nurses with advanced education and training in the diagnosis and management of common health conditions. They have the authority to prescribe medication and order diagnostic tests.

Nurse practitioners are focused on disease prevention and treat minor everyday ailments. Recently the Australian Government invested $2.1m in providing scholarships to help boost nurse practitioner numbers nationwide.

As can be seen from Clinic Services page they cover Urinary Tract and Bladder problems along with Prostate Serum Antigen Test (PSA test).Not sure if they are using Mediwatch products but just highlighting the growing possibilities and applications suited to their product range.

Saturday 27 November 2010

Nurse-led-clinics Website

Here is a new (October 2010 by the look) UK based website that is directed to Nurse Led Clinics.



This site is designed and run for qualified (registered) nurses involved in setting up or running their own nurse-led clinics. It offers the chance to explore this form of health care delivery and update on reviews of the latest news and information in this area.

New video clips (scroll down) are added regularly and our message board allows you to request and share information across the world. Remember to use our search box for abstracts of papers related to your own area of practice..

NEW VIDEOS ON THE WAY!

The growth of the Nurse Practitioner in Montreal (end November)
Creating a business plan for your clinic (early December)









Nurse Led Clinics-New Zealand

Not sure if they are using Mediwatch products but it's a field that Mediwatch are aiming for.I will add this to the main page found within the month of April 2009 under NURSE LED CLINICS/MOBILE CLINICS

Published 2010-10-29
Teamwork amongst urology nurses at NZ hospital - Specialised knowledge not size matters in small urology clinic

Greetings to our urological nursing colleagues in the EAUN! With the invitation to write for your newsletter we would like let you know a little of our urological practice here in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand.

Our hospital is located on the east coast of the NorthIsland and our main industries are agricultural including a booming wine industry! The current population is 150,000 of which 25% are indigenous Maori. The District Health Board employs 2,500 peoplewhich makes it the largest employer in our region. Hawke’s Bay is also served by a private hospital and two of our urologists also work there providing surgery to those that either have insurance or can afford to pay.


From left: Robyn, Trish and Julia

The urology team provides most elective and acute urological services including paediatric surgery. We do not have the funding, or the population base, to make robotic surgery feasible in this area so we refer our patients to the main centres if they chose this treatment option. We also do not have radiotherapy services available locally, but this option is availablein another centre which is two hours away by car. For those opting to have brachytherapy, the procedure is available even farther away after a four-hour drive.

Up until just recently we have had only two urologists, Mr. David Mason and Mr. Kim Broome in our team. But we are happy to announce we have just employeda third urologist, Dr. Leanne Shaw, who recently completed her fellowship year working overseas with Dr. Tony Mundy in London. With Dr Shaw’s interest and expert knowledge in urethral surgery we are very excited to have her working in our team. We also have a trainee registrar in our service.

Currently, we have six members of the New Zealand Urology Nurses Society working in our area. Three of them work in out patient clinics, namely Julia Nelson,Robyn Madden and Goh Yee Tan, and they coordinate six urologist outpatient clinics each week. There are also two nurse practitioner clinics and two urology nurse clinics. In total we see approximately 140 urology outpatients per week. The registered nurses working in the clinics assist the urologists with anumber of procedures including prepping and assisting with cystoscopy, urethral dilatation, TRUS prostate biopsies, stent removal, urodynamics and testosterone implants.

One registered nurse has responsibility for each clinic, planning and preparing a suitable patient mix of new patients, follow ups, procedures and acute patients.This nurse also phones all booked consultant urologyclinic patients prior to their appointment to confirm their attendance. She also checks if tests have been completed and ensures that the patient has received the relevant information, i.e. attending clinic with a full bladder. The clinic nurses have audited this service and found it cuts down significantly on patients missing appointments.
The nurse-led clinics are held twice a week for patients receiving BCG treatment, GnRH and LHRH analogue assessment and administration, urethraldilatations, flow rates and teaching of intermittent selfc atheterisation. The registered nurse role, in all urology clinics, is to support and assist the consultant whilst caring and advocating for the patient.

We were all delighted when last year two of ourmembers, Julia Nelson and Goh Yee Tan were awarded the “OBEX Best Paper” prize at our nationalNZUNS conference. They gave an excellent presentation of their work wherein they developed an orientation package for registered nurses who are new to the Outpatient Department. They used their $2,500 prize to travel to Perth, Australia where they attended the ANZUNS conference in March 2010.

Trish White, our nurse practitioner, has been in herrole for four years now. She sees a mix of new patients and follow-up appointments in clinics as well as offering a case management service for our more complex urological patients which involves community visits. Trish sees a lot of patients with lower urinary tract symptoms, incontinence, recurrent UTI and prostate cancer. She is also keen on research having published the results of her study, which she completed with her colleague, Helen Crowe fromMelbourne, Australia. Their study titled “Definingurology nursing practice roles in Australia and New Zealand” appeared in the International Journal ofUrological Nursing in 2009.

Our operating theatre is managed by Lynn Brinson who also runs the gynaecology theatre. She coordinates five busy sessions per week in herdepartment. Our urology in-patient unit is small with only, on average, eight in-patient beds. We are very proud of Lynn’s recent achievement of becoming one of New Zealand’s First Surgical Assistant which permits her to assist the Urologists in surgery. Athorough assessment by New Zealand Nursing Council is required before a Registered Nurse can work in this extended scope of practice.

While we are a small provincial urology departmentwe foster team work and have regular Friday morning meetings so we can all discuss the coming week’s surgical lists to ensure patients are ready and well as they can be. Everyone is encouraged to contribute during this meeting and it helps our team run smoothly. We are all very keen to participate in national or international meetings so hopefully, one day, we will be able to attend one of your European meetings!

Authors:
Trish White, Nurse Practitioner Adult Urology,
Trish.White@hawkesbaydhb.govt.nz

Julia Nelson, Registered Nurse Outpatient Clinics
Robyn Madden, Registered Nurse Outpatient Clinics
Hawke’s Bay District Health Board, Hawke’s Bay (NZ)

Article from European Urology Today, volume 22, No. 4

Monday 8 November 2010

Pelvic Floor Biofeedback Therapy/Retraining

A little post giving some information relating to Pelvic Floor Biofeedback Therapy/Retraining:

The Mediwatch solutions



(Venus-US only at present time)



And the associated pdf:



What's it all about....


Introduction

Pelvic floor biofeedback therapy is a treatment intended to help patients learn to strengthen and relax their pelvic muscles in order to improve bladder function and decrease pelvic pain. Biofeedback uses electronic and mechanical instruments to accurately measure the action of the pelvic floor muscles, and provides ‘feedback’ information to the patient so that the patient can learn to better use the pelvic muscles. Patients can learn to use the pelvic floor muscles to decrease the sudden urge to urinate, decrease incontinence, and lessen certain types of pelvic pain. An important part of pelvic floor biofeedback therapy is consistent exercise of the pelvic muscles at home, and biofeedback therapy can help teach proper pelvic muscle exercise.

Pelvic floor biofeedback therapy has been used successfuly by many men and women for the past thirty years, and the 1992 & 1996 AHCPR (Agency for Health Care Policy and Research) Guideline on Urinary Incontinence listed biofeedback as a useful treatment option for reducing the symptoms of incontinence. More recently pelvic floor biofeedback therapy, along with pelvic floor muscle massage and "trigger point release" therapy, have been found to be helpful in men and women with chronic pelvic pain. Monterey Bay Urology Associates employ a pelvic therapy clinician, Kathy Cliff, who specializes in pelvic floor therapy in men and women. We have had excellent results with this type of treatment in patients with bothersome urinary incontinence and pelvic pain.(More)

Sunday 7 November 2010

Movember Updates

Prostate Cancer increase life expectancy?

Interesting article relating to German researchers and highlighted on 'The "New" Prostate Cancer InfoLink' website:

Could having a diagnosis of localized prostate cancer increase life expectancy?

Posted on November 5, 2010

In what can only be described as an unexpected finding, a group of German researchers have documented a greater life expectancy for men diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer than for the male population in general, based on data from the Regensburg cancer registry!
Klotz et al. used epidemiological data from the Regensburg cancer registry to study the survival of patients diagnosed with organ-confined prostate cancer (T1-2N0M0) compared to the standardized age-adjusted survival of the normal male population.

Their analysis is based on data from 4,124 patients with prostate cancer diagnosed between 1998 and 2007, of whom 2,087 men had been diagnosed with localized disease. Here is what they claim to have been able to find:

•At 8 years after diagnosis, patients with T1-2N0Mo prostate cancer had a roughly 10 percent relative increase in survival compared with the normal male population.
•This relative increase in survival could be documented just 3 years after diagnosis.
What could possibly account for such a finding?

It can’t be explained by prostate cancer treatment, because any survival benefit from treatment takes at least 8 to 10 years and maybe longer (based on data from the ERSPC trial). The immediate implication is that (at least in Regensburg) men who have PSA tests (and therefore greater likelihood for a diagnosis of prostate cancer) may have better overall health status than men who do not.

This is not an entirely unreasonable suggestion. There is a well-understood phenomenon that associates positive health-related (“health-seeking”) behaviors with all sorts of other factors. Elsewhere on this site, we discuss the fact that although men who have vasectomies seem to be at greater risk for prostate cancer than men who do not have vasectomies, this is not because they have the vasectomies. Rather, it is because they exhibit such “health-seeking” behavior.

We suspect that in Regensburg (and potentially in many other places) having a PSA test is closely correlated with having regular health checks. Men who have regular health checks arguably may have a superior life expectancy to those who see doctor only when they absolutely have to (although such a benefit has never actually been documented, as far as we know). The other issue that then comes into play is whether men of higher income and/or better education are more likely to have regular health checks than those less fortunate. The authors refer to this in their paper as the relationship between PSA testing and a “socal gradient.”

Could having a diagnosis of localized prostate cancer increase life expectancy?

Monday 1 November 2010

It's Movember!



Mediwatch-OEM Partnership with ACON Laboratories

1 November 2010

Mediwatch plc

OEM Partnership with ACON Laboratories

Mediwatch Plc ("Mediwatch" or "the Company", AIM: MDW), the innovative urological diagnostic manufacturing company, has entered into an Original Equipment Manufacture ("OEM") partnership with ACON Laboratories Inc. ("ACON") to distribute urinalysis products.

This partnership includes a distribution agreement that was signed by Mediwatch to distribute worldwide the ACON line of urinalysis products under the Mediwatch brand, Urinewatch. The worldwide urinalysis market is estimated to be worth over $500 million in annual sales.

ACON is an internationally renowned diagnostic company with manufacturing and distribution in China and the US. This company has been a leader in the production of quality diagnostic tests in their particular field.

Mediwatch is excited to have the opportunity of working with this international group and to add this new diagnostic product to its exclusive urology diagnostic range.

Philip Stimpson, Mediwatch's Chief Executive commented:

"This is an excellent opportunity for Mediwatch to expand its one-stop shop offering for Urologists."

OEM Partnership with ACON Laboratories



FUTURE EVENTS AND LATEST NEWS(Updated 2nd Nov)





Latest News/Website Updates

Director's Shareholding 2nd November

OEM Partnership with ACON Laboratories 1st November



Mediwatch Positions/Jobs



Mediwatch Training Courses

Mediwatch USA- Basic Urodynamics Clinicians’ Workshop 13th-14th November 2010



Future Events

Events where Mediwatch are attending/exhibiting will be marked as so or updated,hopefully before the event is finished.More Events to add later

British Association of Urological Nurses Annual Conference and Exhibition UK 4th-5th November 2010 Mediwatch are Exhibiting

28th Biennial Congress of the Urological Association of South African South Africa 16th-19th November 2010 Mediwatch distributor 'Tecmed Africa'are Exhibiting

19th Malaysian Urological Conference Malaysia-25th-28th November 2010


STUFF THAT MAYBE DID BUT NOW
DOESN'T FIT IN WITH THE TITLE...


Website Update (Aug)-Mobile Watch

Interim Results

Mediwatch Newsletter-July 2010 Edition

OEM Partnership with Thought Technology Ltd Mediwatch-14th June

Distribution Agreement with GE Healthcare Mediwatch-8th June

Director Shareholding 4th May

Director Shareholding 14th April


Mediwatch Annual Report 2009


December/January Mediwatch Newsletter

Mediwatch Interim Results for the six month ended 30 April 2009

Five year global distribution agreement secured with Inverness Medical Innovations-16 March 2009

Preliminary Results for the year ended 31 October 2008-Issued 26 January 2009