Jill Joseph is a leading healthcare planner and designer, having worked across the US, Europe and the Middle East as a consultant for Herman Miller Healthcare. This year she visited Australia to educate architecture and design firms on patient-centred care and evidence-based design for the healthcare industry. [ + ]

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Mental health has become the awakening giant of health care, as Australians realise how ubiquitous mental illness really is in their everyday lives. But there’s a growing disconnect between this grassroots awareness and decisive action towards providing the full spectrum of care for those in need. [ + ]

The most recent Australian suicide statistics from 2013 show that, out of the whole population, men aged 85 years and over have the highest suicide rates. While the attention these figures have garnered is a positive sign, this is hardly a new phenomenon. [ + ]

The challenge of meeting the needs of our ageing population – today and into the future – is considerable. It cannot be achieved in insolation from government, health and community services, and other industries including technology, design and business services. Partnerships are critical to maximising efficiency and quality of the care and services provided to older Australians. Central to such partnerships is a co-design approach that puts older Australians and their families at the heart of all decision-making, and engages people from across industries and disciplines with the shared goal of providing the best possible care and services. [ + ]

Mental health problems are common in young people and often have their first onset during this period of life. But many affected youth either don’t seek or delay seeking professional help. [ + ]

At this year's Australia Museum Eureka Prizes, a ninth-grader stole the show with her myth-busting video explain just exactly why we have an appendix. Her diagnosis of the misunderstood organ's crucial role in gut health saw Paige Bebee from Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School in Victoria awarded the University of Sydney Sleek Geeks Science Eureka Prize – Secondary category for her video, The Secret of the Appendix. [ + ]

The National Safety and Quality in Health Services Standards were introduced in 2011 by The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (the Commission), under the National Health Reform Act. [ + ]

Michael Vagg, Barwon Health [ + ]

Jeffrey Craig, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute [ + ]

For decades, clinicians and researchers have been concerned about patients getting treatments, including operations, that don’t work. As well as failing to treat the original health problem, ineffective care exposes patients to complications and side-effects and waste precious health-care resources. [ + ]

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Aric Bendorf, University of Sydney; Ainsley Newson, University of Sydney, and Ian Kerridge, University of Sydney [ + ]

The science of sleep medicine has long proved difficult in the treatment of chronic insomnia, with researchers still not convinced of the effectiveness of sleeping pills currently on the market. However, researchers at Penn University in the US have found that a half-and-half mixture of sleeping pills and placebo tablets might be just as effective as a nightly schedule of sleep medication for treating chronic insomnia. [ + ]

Surgeons perform faster and with more accuracy when listening to music, according to a study published in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal. [ + ]