Gilesrosendahl9711

regimen, and is inadequately informed by stroke and bleeding risk scores.

In New Zealand, one in seven patients presenting with ACS have AF, a third being new-onset AF. Antithrombotic management is inconsistent, with underutilisation of anticoagulants, particularly the DAT regimen, and is inadequately informed by stroke and bleeding risk scores.

New Zealand has among the highest rates of colorectal cancer and inflammatory bowel disease in the world. With the imminent rollout of the National Bowel Screening Programme, we sought to determine the capacity of and demand faced by the current gastroenterology specialist workforce, and to compare it with other countries.

Specialists in gastroenterology were asked to complete a questionnaire on their education, number of FTE in the public and private sectors, number of colonoscopies performed, anticipated years to retirement and other associated information. Additional statistics were obtained from personal communication, visits to endoscopy units throughout the country and government datasets.

In November 2017 there were 93 gastroenterologists in New Zealand, equating to 1.96 gastroenterologist specialists/100,000 population. The response rate was 55%. One quarter of gastroenterologists spent time working in general internal medicine additionally to gastroenterology in public hospitals. Fifty-one percent of gastroenterologists were older than 50 years and 42% aimed to retire within the next 10 years. Four of the 20 district health boards had no gastroenterologists in post.

New Zealand has a lower specialist gastroenterologist ratio and older workforce compared with other comparable western countries and may struggle to meet the growing gastroenterology healthcare needs of the population. Substantial regional gastroenterology service inequities exist across the country.

New Zealand has a lower specialist gastroenterologist ratio and older workforce compared with other comparable western countries and may struggle to meet the growing gastroenterology healthcare needs of the population. Substantial regional gastroenterology service inequities exist across the country.

Falls are common in 80-plus year-olds and there is evidence available in terms of risk factors and prevention measures. We aimed to review falls risk factor assessment and secondary prevention strategies in patients in this age group presenting acutely to services other than older adult health services at Waitemata District Health Board.

We retrospectively reviewed electronic hospital records of those >80 years presenting to acute services with a primary or secondary diagnosis of a fall, or fall-related injury. Admission characteristics, risk factor identification and subsequent referrals for falls prevention were recorded. Six-month outcomes including readmissions and mortality were assessed.

One hundred and thirty-eight discharge summaries were reviewed (71% female, median age 89). Thirty-one percent had a previous fall-related hospital admission in the six months prior. There was high prevalence of psychoactive medications (51%) and falls-related cardiovascular drugs (78%) at discharge. No patients were referred for falls prevention programmes or geriatric assessment at discharge. At six months 19% had died and 44% had been readmitted.

There are inadequate falls prevention referrals, indicating a quality of care gap. The older age group presenting to acute services have high rates of polypharmacy, hospitalisations and death.

There are inadequate falls prevention referrals, indicating a quality of care gap. The older age group presenting to acute services have high rates of polypharmacy, hospitalisations and death.

The objective of this research is to determine community dwelling patients' awareness of temporarily discontinuing medicines during acute illness, and the actions they would undertake when acutely unwell.

Adults taking long-term oral medicines for chronic health conditions completed a four-question self-completion paper-based questionnaire collecting data requiring quantitative analysis. Recruitment occurred in six participating Hawke's Bay community pharmacies during 2017 and 2018.

One hundred and thirty people completed the survey. Seventeen (13%) recalled receiving guidance from a health professional on which medicines to stop during excessive vomiting or diarrhoea. Only three people, however, would stop their medicines. Eighteen percent (17/95) of participants aged 65 years and older were prescribed both a NSAID and either an angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitor(ACEi) or angiotensin-II receptor blocker (ARB); five reported receiving advice to withhold medicines. Three participants were prescribed a Triple Whammy combination; none reported being advised to withhold medicines.

A small proportion of the participants recalled receiving guidance to temporarily withhold medicines during acute illness; many indicated the advice would not be followed. The results indicate a degree of acute kidney injury prior (AKI) at-risk prescribing. There are opportunities to empower people to self-manage at-risk medicines during periods of acute illness.

A small proportion of the participants recalled receiving guidance to temporarily withhold medicines during acute illness; many indicated the advice would not be followed. The results indicate a degree of acute kidney injury prior (AKI) at-risk prescribing. There are opportunities to empower people to self-manage at-risk medicines during periods of acute illness.Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin tumour, with the majority of the cases occurring on the head and neck district, where cosmetic and functional results are crucial. VPA inhibitor It can be locally destructive if not diagnosed early and treated appropriately. Surgery is the treatment of choice for most lesions, but aggressive, recurrent, or unresectable tumours can be challenging to manage. Advanced basal cell carcinoma includes high recurrence risk subtypes, in which standard therapies demonstrate lack of efficacy. This led to a need for investigating more deeply the pathogenesis of the disease and to the discovery of the implication of the hedgehog pathway. The development of systemic inhibitors of this pathway provides new treatment options for patients with advanced disease, resulting in survival improvement. Food and Drug Administration, before, and European Medicines Agency later approved 2 Hedgehog pathway inhibitors for the treatment of advanced basal cell carcinomas, vismodegib and sonidegib. Here, we present a review of the current English language literature trying to analyze differences in the 2 drugs as a head-to-head comparison between them has not already been documented in a randomized controlled clinical trial.