TRANSFORMING SURGICAL WAITLIST INTO A ‘PREPARATION LIST’
With
Dr Andrew Marks,
Staff Specialist Anaesthetist & Director of Perioperative Medicine,
Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, Australia
Dr Kanika Chaudhri,
Anaesthetic Senior Resident Medical Officer,
Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, Australia
CASE STUDY
Filmed in Sydney, Australia | January 2026
The DIAMONDS initiative aims to transform the surgical waitlist into a “preparation list,” enabling healthcare professionals to optimise patient care in the months leading up to elective surgery starting at pre-admission phase.
Patients are will be able to complete pre-admission forms online, receive timely updates, and access educational resources to ensure thorough preparation. This will allow staff to spend more time with patients.
The DIAMONDS pathway, which stands for ‘Digital Pathway of Improved Assessment, Management and Optimisation of Patients for Planned Surgery’ has commenced at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, Australia.
patient care by streamlining assessments and addressing the challenges of the existing paper-based system.
“Staff benefit by having centralised patient information and automated routine tasks, allowing them to focus on providing high-quality care, which ultimately leads to a smoother, more efficient process for everyone involved”, says Dr Kanika Chaudhri.
“Patients benefit from user-friendly tools that enable them to complete pre-admission forms online and access educational resources, enhancing their care experience,” she said.
DIAMONDS is led by the New South Wales, Northern Sydney Local Health District, with collaboration partners Australian Institute of Health Innovation (AIHI) and the George Institute for Global Health.
Source: Adapted from NSLHD news and events
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Biological interactions of extracellular vesicles
Raluca Ghebosu graduated from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science with majors in Japanese and Biomedical Science (2018-2021). She then completed her Bachelor of Science (Honours) with the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Queensland in 2022, before pursuing a PhD with A/Prof. Joy Wolfram at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology.
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Good and bad extracellular vesicles in health and disease
Associate Professor Joy Wolfram has joint appointments in the School of Chemical Engineering and the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at The University of Queensland, and through her work at the AIBN, she aims to develop a new paradigm of therapeutics (using nanotechnology and cell products) to treat life-threatening diseases that are major causes of death globally, including cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, and breast cancer.
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Benefits of prehabilitation ahead of surgery
Dr Matthew Wallen PhD, AES, AEP is a Senior Research Fellow in Cancer Survivorship, the Deputy Lead of the Cancer Survivorship Program, and a Senior Lecturer in Exercise Science and Clinical Exercise Physiology within the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University, in South Australia. His clinical interest focuses on improving outcomes for people requiring major surgery, specifically (1) lifestyle interventions, including exercise, nutritional, and psychological support to improve the health and wellbeing of people prior to surgery, termed ‘prehabilitation’, (2) novel physical function assessments aimed at identifying people at risk of treatment-related complications, and (3) implementation of new models of care in cancer.
