Pneumococcal Pneumonia from VIVA! Communications on Vimeo.

We wish Mahsa and Max all the best for their engagement and upcoming wedding plans.

Team VIVA!

Mahsa with her gorgeous ring and flowers from the VIVA! Team

Dr John Skerrit appointed as new head of TGA

The TGA is the national body responsible for regulating therapeutic goods including medicines, medical devices, blood and blood products.

The medication price cuts are in addition to the broadbrush $1.9 billion in PBS savings that constitute the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Medicines Australia (MA) and the Government, which saw 74 medicines slashed in price last month.

Manufacturers of originators (brand name medicines) are bracing themselves for future price cuts as patents expire and medications become subject to price disclosure.

The 13 medicines, representing more than 200 brands include Amisulpride, Bisoprolol, Cefalotin, Doxorubicin, Escitalopram, Levetiracetam, Meloxicam, Mitozantrone, Ondansetron, Oxaliplatin, Oxybutinin, Perindopril and Prochlorperazine.

Yke is living with complex Parkinson’s & is managing his disease effectively, which allows him to enjoy a full, active lifestyle.

Check out the video below:

On location with VIVA! from VIVA! Communications on Vimeo.

To see the full story on Yke, or to learn more, contact VIVA! Communications on 02 9968 3741.

Abbey has relocated to Sydney from her home town of Adelaide to forge a career in health communication, following a stint as the Communications and Marketing Officer for a Not-for-Profit Organisation.

“I developed a passion for health and wellness communication while studying Journalism (notably health reporting) and completing an internship at the Australian Doctor Magazine.

“Working part-time for one of Adelaide’s largest General Practices for four years further consolidated my interest in this area,” said Abbey.

“This real-life experience combined with my communication skills allowed me to land on VIVA!s doorstep.”

Abbey is excited to have relocated to Sydney after spending her whole life in Adelaide and the beautiful Barossa Valley.

“Living in Sydney will be a huge but welcome change from life in Adelaide,” Abbey said.

“I’m looking forward to exploring this amazing city, particularly the areas around our beautiful office in Mosman.

“The view of Sydney Harbour is simply breathtaking and I have no doubts that this feeling will last for a long time.”

VIVA!s Principal, Ms Kirsten Bruce, is delighted to welcome Abbey to her health + wellness communications agency.

“Abbey’s demonstrated passion for the health + wellness sector will further enhance VIVA!s reputation for delivering proactive, innovative, versatile and outcomes-driven work of the highest quality.

“Having specialised in health reporting and worked in a General Practice, Abbey fully appreciates the importance of quality patient interaction and education.

“Her skills-set and drive will add immense strength to our multi-disciplinary team,” said Ms Bruce.

In Australia, the price of pharmaceutical products is determined by negotiations between the Federal Government’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Pricing Authority (PBPA) and the pharmaceutical supplier.

Pharmaceutical companies usually apply for their commercially-aproved products to be listed on the Government’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), providing consumers with affordable (Government-subsidised) medications.

Failure to secure a PBS-listing, as in the case earlier this year when seven new medications were deferred by the Aus- tralian Government, generally has an adverse effect on professional health com- municators. Nonetheless, communicators continue to play a pivotal role in main- taining the profile and raising awareness of health conditions and their management. Armed with a comprehensive under- standing of the Code, professional health communicators are uniquely positioned to inform and educate target audiences (generally healthcare professionals and consumers) via strategic PR campaigns designed to breathe life into existing and clinically proven medications.

Furthermore, patient advocacy pro-grams coordinated under the umbrella of consumer health organisations, are in high-demand under a pricing system that primarily involves the pharmaceutical supplier and the Federal Government. Health communicators can offer patients a public platform to voice their concerns regarding health conditions and the importance of, or need for medications designed to deliver the highest levels of health to the individual and to society.

It is with great sadness that I learned this month of the tragic passing of leading Australian rheumatologist, past-President of the Australian & New Zealand Bone & Mineral Society (ANZBMS) and inaugural Medical Director of Osteoporosis Australia, Professor Phil Sambrook. Phil passed away in peace at his Kangaroo Valley retreat with his loving wife and children beside him, following a diagnosis of ocular melanoma four years ago, which later manifested as secondary liver and bone metastases.

Over the past decade I have launched many World Osteoporosis Days and other bone health projects, working closely with Phil in his role as Medical Director of Osteoporosis Australia. Phil was the ultimate professional – incredibly media savvy, technically brilliant, compassionate, fearless and always willing to give of his time.

I distinctly recall working on a project with Phil in 2007, for which he expressly requested my assistance. Together we issued a public condemnation of the ABC TV’s 7:30 Report’s irresponsible and factually incorrect story, featuring Phil, which had aired on the use of bisphosphonates – a class of medications designed to treat bone diseases such as osteoporosis, and in much stronger doses, in cancer to prevent the complications when it spreads to the bone.

Concerned by public reaction to the story, Phil, who was President of the ANZBMS at the time, joined forces with Osteoporosis Australia to set the record straight on a number of factual errors cited by the program, which had the potential to cause serious alarm, unrest and adversely affect many Australians taking bisphosphonates to prevent osteoporosis and fractures.

Suffice to say, the 7:30 Report issued a public apology to Phil and provided him with the opportunity to set the record straight by dedicating an entire program to the topic the following week. Phil was vindicated, for he had won this epic battle and I had been personally instrumental in helping him do so.

In response to Phil’s passing, and in recognition of his life-time commitment to research and improving bone health, for which he won an Order of Australia Medal, Osteoporosis Australia and the ANZBMS have set up the Professor Philip Sambrook Memorial Award – an annual award for an outstanding young researcher, to allow them to present their research at a prestigious international conference and as part of the annual ANZBMS scientific meeting. The fund aims to raise $250,000 AUD and to be granted to a recipient annually, in perpetuity. To donate to this appeal, click here.

On a personal note, I wish to thank Phil for sharing his extensive knowledge of, and passion for, bone health with me. His commitment to this area was unsurpassed. May he rest in peace.

Milestones matter, and achieving a century of anything is worth noting.

In Poland, where I have lived and worked since 2005, birthdays are celebrated not with a chorus of “Happy Birthday to You,” but with a raucous song called “Sto Lat!” that means “100 Years.” My adopted country clearly gets the message.

There is no question that over the span of its existence, the Journal of Health Communications has made a real difference in advancing and diffusing knowledge in this critical sector of the communications discipline. As a member of the Journal’s editorial board, I’m excited to celebrate this 100 issue achievement, however, the question that I ask myself is, “Where do we go from here?” I think that the challenges of staying relevant in the years that lie ahead will be both plentiful and, hopefully, invigorating ones for this journal, its editors, contributors and readers.

The first change I expect to see is in the focus of the articles we publish. These changes will be driven by a combination of profound global demographic changes, ongoing economic pressures and the plethora of new media and media apps that are the currency of early 21stcentury communications. With respect to demographics, we are right now in the midst of two profound currents of change: on the one hand, western society is aging rapidly, and on the other hand, the number of young people in the developing societies of Asia, Africa and Latin America is growing at an extraordinary rate.

So, how is our world going to meet the increasing demands on health care systems to address simultaneously the very different health needs of our societies? If we are to do a better job of deploying limited financial resources to control non-communicable diseases in both the aging societies of the West and the more rapidly westernizing societies of the developing world, it is clear that improved health communications must be part of the solution.

Over the JHC’s next 100 issues, we will need to plan our editorial calendar more aggressively to identify examples of innovative health communications programs of health literacy and non-communicable disease prevention among the elderly and infectious disease prevention programs in the developing world, and make sure that such programs are being evaluated responsibly and to publish and disseminate the results in a timely fashion.

The second change I envision is a greater attention to the lessons that might be learned from historical achievements in health communications. Beginning in the 1970s, the US National Institutes of Health initiated national programs of high blood pressure and cholesterol education whose work clearly correlates with reductions in coronary heart disease. Given the ongoing epidemic of obesity, it would probably be worthwhile to revisit an experimental NHLBI program that I consulted on, which successfully changed supermarket consumer point-of-purchase decisions towards lower fat and calorie foods.

Nor has JHC published much academic analysis of successful private-sector, primarily industry-funded, programs that have had a positive impact on health behaviors either by themselves or as complements to government efforts (our articles on private sector health communications to date have tended towards the critical side). I believe that JHC needs to cast its net more broadly in this direction. The same holds true with respect to new media, especially social media. For all the academic analysis that has taken place, I suspect that the best work still takes place in the public sector. GLOBALHealthPR, a global partnership of healthcare communications consultancies I work with, recently did a significant analysis of the social media impact of World Malaria Day 2011. Indeed, I think the rabbit-like proliferation of national and international health-related days, weeks and months provides a massive trove of health communications data to be analyzed systematically by our authors.

In sum, there is abundant ferment and change taking place in healthcare communication. I know that JHC will continue to publish articles that monitor, analyze and evaluate these changes. My “birthday wish” is for JHC to do even more to help set the agenda and drive progress in the field at this critical time.

Kenneth H Rabin is the Director for GLOBALHealthPR, a network of health-focused, independent communications firms, founded by Spectrum. Ken is also the Adjunct Professor of Public Relations and Corporate Communications, New York University. He has served as a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Health Communication since 2002. A version of this article first appeared in the Journal of Health Communication.

We didn’t have to venture far from our new office at Middle Head to enjoy a wonderful lunch at The Tea Room Gunners’ Barracks.

From the historic venue – which has had many uses during the 130 years in which the military occupied the headland – we were also treated to some of the best views of Sydney Harbour. And we couldn’t have asked for better weather with Sydney warming up to a balmy 26 degrees.

Birthday girl Kirsty was spoilt by both the VIVA! team and the staff at The Tea Room who surprised her with a special dessert (complete with candle) and sung happy birthday.

Principal Kirsten tried the restaurant’s signature high tea and was certainly not disappointed by the three tiers of sandwiches, scones and sweets.