At only the 2nd white paper launched at Australia’s Parliament House, Australian College of Nursing released the White Paper – A New Horizon for Health Service: Optimising Advanced Practice Nursing.
The event on 3rd December 2019 had nurses and nursing leaders attending from across Australia and support for the White Paper came across party lines with speeches from:
- The Hon Minister Greg Hunt MP, Minister for Health
- The Hon Chris Bowen MP, Shadow Minister for Health
- Senator Richard Di Natale, Leader of The Australian Greens
Advanced Practice Nurses comprise 9% of the total nursing workforce, with 26,000 clinicians Australia wide. However although highly skilled, they are underutilised and constrained to the full scope of practice. The Australian College of Nursing believes this needs to change. Nurse led models of care in which Advanced Practice Nurses play a significant role in service provision, must feature in the future. ACN President Professor Christine Duffield FACN states, “It’s now widely acknowledged internationally that nurses can provide a clinical and very valuable service that’s better suited to the healthcare needs of some consumer groups.”
“Nurses can do more, should do more and now they will do more”, added The Hon Minister Greg Hunt MP, Minister for Health.
Australian College of Nursing CEO Adjunct Professor Kylie Anne Ward FACN spoke to Australian Health Journal at the end of the event, with Chris O’Donnell MACN, Chair of Advanced Practice COI and Adjunct Associate Professor Chris Raftery MACN, Deputy Chair of Advanced Practice COI
Link to White Paper : https://www.acn.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/white-paper-optimising-advanced-practice-nursing.pdf
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Clinical entrepreneur addresses needle-phobia
Australian entrepreneur, Lauren Barber, turned her nursing background into the role of an inventor and launched a medical device into the Australian healthcare industry.
No journey is linear for an entrepreneur, but Lauren has travelled considerable distance from a nursing student to a successful entrepreneur illustration her determination and passion to help those with needle phobias. Lauren’s work with NeedleCalm is making a positive impact in the healthcare industry and improving the experiences of patients and clinicians alike.
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The 2019 John Deeble Lecture and Panel Discussion
The John Deeble Lecture and Panel Discussion was established by the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association to commemorate the life and achievements as distinguished scholar, health economist and health policy leader, Prof John Deeble AO.
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Handling modern day diets and misinformation as a HCP
Laureate Professor Clare Collins AO in Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Newcastle, emphasises the need for accurate and reliable nutrition information to reach the public. Prof Collins believes that it is vital for clinicians to stay up-to-date with cutting-edge nutrition science and work with communication organisations to disseminate information to the general public. This is particularly important as social media is full of both reliable and unreliable information on dietary patterns, such as veganism.
