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Over 10 million ED visits occur each year across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. Outside basic administrative data focused on time‐based targets, there is minimal information about clinical performance, quality of care, patient outcomes, or equity in emergency care. The lack of a timely, accurate or clinically useful data collection represents a missed opportunity to improve the care we deliver each day. The present paper outlines a proposal for a National Acute Care Secure Health Data Environment, including design, possible applications, and the steps taken to date by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine ED Epidemiology Network in collaboration with the College of Emergency Nursing Australasia. Optimal use of the existing information collected routinely during clinical care of emergency patients has the potential to enable data‐driven quality improvement and research, leading to better care and better outcomes for millions of patients and families each year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Workforce reform has placed a significant focus on the role of non-medical prescribers in the healthcare system. Pharmacists are trained in pharmacology and therapeutics, and therefore well placed to act as non-medical prescribers., Objectives: To assess the safety and accuracy of inpatient medication charts within a pharmacist collaborative prescribing model (intervention), compared to the usual medical model (control) in the emergency department (ED). Another objective compared venous thromboembolism (VTE) risk assessment and prescribing, between intervention and control groups., Methods: Adult patients in ED referred for hospital admission were randomised into control or intervention by a block randomisation method, until the required sample size was reached. Medication charts were audited retrospectively by an independent auditor, using validated audit forms., Results: Intervention group medication charts contained significantly fewer prescribing errors, omissions and discrepancies compared to the control group, and improved documentation of adverse drug reactions. VTE risk assessment and prescribing had higher guideline concordance in the intervention group compared to the control group., Conclusions: This collaborative prescribing trial showed excellent results in safety and accuracy of pharmacist prescribing when compared to the usual medical model of prescribing. The admitting medical practitioner and extended scope pharmacist prescriber worked as a collaborative team in emergency, which improved Australian national prescribing safety indicators., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The article presents the study which examines the beliefs and attitudes of Australian emergency department healthcare workers towards influenza vaccination. The study utilizes the cross-sectional study which include a self-administered questionnaire. Results revealed that misconceptions about influenza vaccine were common among 56.4% of nurses. It further concludes that combined campaigning strategies are needed to increase the vaccine uptake.