Events

Individuals leading change within a single service or department often find that solutions lie outside their own scope. Creating a functional system requires balance and coordination across multiple teams, professions, and sectors, but how do we do that when the entire system is running over capacity? This is an opportunity to hear from Kylie Stark coordinator for the Southern Child Health Network NSW and Clare Skinner president of ACEM and Senior Staff Specialist in EM (and former Director) at Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Hospital on leadership, advocacy, workplace culture, quality and safety, clinical redesign and health system reform.

The presentation will give a detailed overview of our discovery journey from finding the new biomarkers, namely FKBPL and CD44, to translating these into a point of care test for preeclampsia diagnosis. Preeclampsia is a cardiovascular complication that can occur during the second half of pregnancy and is currently without a cure. It still kills over 76,000 women and 500,000 babies worldwide every year, predominantly in developing countries.

Rural and remote maternity service delivery has unique and complex challenges that require innovation solutions. Join Kate Reynolds, Coordinator of Midwifery for WA Country Health Services, the largest health service in Australia to learn about their Midwifery and Obstetric Emergency Telehealth Service (MOETS).

This is an opportunity to hear from Dr Angela Jones COO at Monash Partners Academic Health Science Centre and Debra Langridge Head of the Consumer and Community Involvement Program in WA to understand the principles behind evidence based consumer and community involvement (CCI) practice and its barriers and enablers.

Women from a refugee background who resettle in high-income countries experience poorer perinatal outcomes compared to women born in host countries. Therefore, adapting midwifery continuity of care models to address cultural and social needs is fundamental to improve perinatal outcomes for women from a refugee background who resettle in high-income countries.

Nitrous oxide is a commonly used labour analgesic, but in recent years it has been the focus of increased scrutiny due to its negative environmental impacts. This has been picked up by the mainstream media and has evoked anger, outrage and fear, but missing from this discussion has been an honest look at the issue itself. This presentation will discuss nitrous oxide, its comparative analgesic efficacy and environmental impact in reference to other pharmaceutical labour analgesic options, and give a framework to consider how to minimise the negative impact of nitrous oxide without compromising maternity care.

Our National Women’s Health and Wellbeing Scorecard, has demonstrated declining health and wellbeing over the past decade for Australian women.  This confirms that progress is either not being made or is too slow with over a century needed to close gender gaps.  Join Health Economist, Prof Emily Callander whose mission is to improve the equity and efficiency of health services and systems by embedding economic evidence into decision-making.

There is a global rise in the incidence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), with current rates documented to be between 5–36% of pregnant women. Increasing evidence over the last few decades has identified women have a reduced lifetime risk of type 2 diabetes (T2DM) as well as an improved cardiometabolic risk profile if they have a greater lifetime duration of breastfeeding and breastfeed exclusively or mostly breastfeed (high intensity breastfeeding). Considering the global rise in diabetes, exploring breastfeeding to reduce population diabetes risk has the potential for both individual and public health benefits.

Star Baby is a first of its kind guide specifically for Indigenous families following a stillbirth. It aims to provide clinical information to the family during Sorry Business (bereavement) that is also imbued with culture, language, storytelling and ceremony. Culturally responsive and safe care during Sorry Business empowers families and supports them in their grief. 

In this presentation, Dr Buckley shares highlights from her current PhD research into endogenous oxytocin systems in labour and birth, including physiological birth and birth with maternity-care interventions.

Increasingly sexed terms such as ‘women’ and ‘mothers’ are being removed from discussions of female reproduction. The good and important intention behind these changes is sensitivity to, and acknowledgement of, the needs of people who are biologically female and yet do not consider themselves to be women because of their gender identity. However, these changes are often not deliberated regarding their impact on accuracy or potential for other unintended consequences. In this presentation we will present some background to this issue, describe various observed impacts, consider a number of potentially deleterious consequences, and suggest a way forward.

Dr Ben Symon shares reflections on his training in paediatric emergency medicine and in doing so unpacks the concept of 'transactive memory': the ways in which humans store memories as a collective, and how that can impact our ability to connect with and trust other healthcare teams.

The H3 Project mobilizes the health workforce, climate researchers and broader community in recognition that meaningful and timely climate action requires both organization-led and grassroots engagement. The project recruits campus greening volunteers and sustainability champions and promotes the wellbeing benefits of regularly engaging with green spaces to alleviate the hardship associated with delivering and receiving hospital-based care and accelerate adaptation to climate change.