Cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes and chronic kidney disease (CKD) account for around a quarter of the burden of disease in Australia, and just under two-thirds of all deaths. These three diseases often occur together and share risk factors, such as physical inactivity, overweight and obesity, and high blood pressure. This report includes information on the...

Public and private hospitals are estimated to have similar total costs, according to this report, but there are differences in the composition of costs between the two sectors, with medical and diagnostics, and prostheses more costly in private hospitals; and general hospital costs and capital costs higher in public hospitals. This discussion draft responds to...

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s pledge to ‘Close the Gap’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health outcomes was perceived as a long overdue landmark, but its achievement will require more than yet another government strategy or more funding. The Rudd government is doing what previous administrations have always done — throwing more and more money at the...

The importance of collaboration and partnerships in the delivery of effective services is a notion that is well established in the literature, for example, the recent evaluation of the former Stronger Families and Communities Strategy. This article describes a partnership between practitioners and researchers. The Mental Health Community Based Program funded by the Department of...

This report presents results from the eleventh year of the BEACH program, a national study of general practice activity. From April 2008 to March 2009, 1,011 general practitioners recorded data about 101,100 GP-patient encounters involving the management of 149,462 problems. For an 'average' 100 encounters, GPs recorded 106 medications, 34 clinical treatments, 17 procedures, 9...