Presidential praise for Aussie rheumatologist

A/Prof Philip Robinson

Queensland rheumatologist Associate Professor Philip Robinson has been singled out by the American College of Rheumatology president for his contribution to the COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance registry.

In his presidential address at the recent ACR Convergence 2021 meeting, Professor David R. Karp, described the GRA as “one of the most incredible things that has happened in the last twenty months” in rheumatology.

Professor Karp said the registry had been created from scratch at the start of the Covid pandemic by Associate Professor Robinson and a few international colleagues after a Twitter discussion about how best to answer emerging questions about the effects of SARS-CoV-2 on patients with rheumatic and autoimmune musculoskeletal diseases.

“I watched as this idea circled the globe and took hold with people volunteering to create the infrastructure needed online and begin to formulate the questions to be answered. I think the result has been spectacular,” he told the meeting.

With assistance from ACR, the grassroots global project has since collected data on almost 20,000 individuals from 100 countries with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases who have contracted COVID-19, and also collected data directly from patients about their experience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

They are currently collecting data from patients on their experience with COVID-19 vaccination.

“The GRA has an absolutely stellar steering committee led by Philip Robinson from Australia, and Jinoos Yazdany from San Francisco,” said Professor Karp, who is Chief, Rheumatic Diseases Division, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas.

Government launches inquiry into childhood rheumatic diseases

A parliamentary inquiry into childhood rheumatic diseases has been launched by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport.

Chaired by Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman, with ALP’s Dr Mike Freelander, a paediatrician, as deputy chair, the terms of reference of the inquiry cover childhood rheumatic diseases and juvenile arthritis. The inquiry will report on:

• Research into the causes of childhood rheumatic diseases, including prevalence levels of childhood rheumatic diseases in Australia
• The health, social, educational and economic health impacts on children and adults who developed rheumatic diseases in childhood, their families and the broader community
• Access to medical services, including diagnosis, treatment and ongoing management and support including patient information, with a focus on rural and remote communities
• Best practice quality of care and availability of treatments, including emerging treatments with a focus on equitable access to effective drugs
• The adequacy and consistency of professional education, training and awareness amongst healthcare professionals and community awareness of the disease.

“We’re looking forward to hearing from the public, health professionals, patients and all interested stakeholders on how Australia’s health system could improve the management of rheumatic diseases for all patients and their families,” a statement from the Committee said.

Submissions from interested individuals and organisations are invited by Friday 04 February 2022.

Discharge summary abbreviations cause confusion

Medical abbreviations used by specialists in hospital discharge summaries are often confusing to the GPs who receive them and also ambiguous for hospital colleagues and junior doctors, an Australian study has found.

A retrospective audit of 802 discharge summaries at a Queensland regional health service found that they contained an average of 17 abbreviations, and almost one in five GPs were unable to interpret at least one of them.

Almost all (94%) of GPs said that ambiguous abbreviations had a negative impact on patient care and 60% said they spent too much time of clarifying them. Abbreviations could also have multiple possible meanings in different contexts and led to confusion for 15% of junior doctors working in other departments of the same hospital, the study found.

While most had no problems with abbreviations such as Hb and IHD, the abbreviations that had widest range of misinterpretations or ‘don’t know’ responses included NAD, DEM, PE, LC, TGA, TCH and BAE.

The study authors said hospitals should adopt a standardised list of acceptable abbreviations for medical documentation, which is made available to both hospital medical staff and GPs.

They also noted that abbreviations were very location specific, with marked differences between those used by Melbourne and Sydney hospitals.

The findings are published in the Internal Medicine Journal.