The Australian PCEHR System: Ensuring Privacy and Security through an Improved Access Control Mechanism

An Electronic Health Record (EHR) is designed to store diverse data accurately from a range of health care providers and to capture the status of a patient by a range of health care providers across time. Realising the numerous benefits of the system, EHR adoption is growing globally and many countries invest heavily in electronic health systems. In Australia, the Government invested $467 million to build key components of the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) system in July 2012. However, in the last three years, the uptake from individuals and health care providers has not been satisfactory. Unauthorised access of the PCEHR was one of the major barriers. We propose an improved access control model for the PCEHR system to resolve the unauthorised access issue. We discuss the unauthorised access issue with real examples and present a potential solution to overcome the issue to make the PCEHR system a success in Australia

Research disruptions and recovery

With the pandemic of COVID‐19, the routine work of surgeons has been reduced to release resources to critical care and other functions. This is necessary and right, in order to protect the health of our communities now. As a consequence, many of us who undertake clinical research have seen our work suspended. With a rich portfolio of colorectal research, this includes studies such as ROSSINI2, PITSTOP, & MASH, and has delayed the start of other important studies such as ELF 2 and Damascus]. When we return to something akin to normality, we shall be looking to re‐establish the studies in a timely manner. Funders have generally been flexible with regards to the disruption and have provided guidance on how the disruption might be managed1. There is no doubt that they may be asked to provide additional support for studies in progress, which may impact future funding opportunities

Rectal cancer management during the COVID-19 pandemic (ReCaP): multicentre prospective observational study.

Concerns over unacceptable high mortality in patients with rectal cancer undergoing surgery or systemic therapy who contract COVID-19 have led to widespread adoption of alternative treatment strategies.The ReCaP study aimed to study these variations and associated outcomes

Dietary Lipids and Cancer

For many years, epidemiological studies continued to suggest that high fat diets are linked to an increased incidence of certain cancers. However, whether the oncogenic properties of fat are associated with their quantity rather than the quality has become debatable. Epidemiological studies have been suggesting that n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-6 PUFA) and saturated fats are more likely to increase the incidence of cancer, whereas monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA) are more likely to prevent or decrease the chance of carcinogenesis. A firm conclusion cannot be drawn yet because of insufficient research. This paper reviews the current knowledge of the effects of saturated fats, different types of unsaturated fats, and fat-soluble vitamins on the etiology of cancer