Learning
objectives
•
Audit is an obligatory activity in which all healthcare professionals
must play a role.
•
Audit can and will provide useful data about the outcome of clinical
activity and will fulfill the requirements of ensuring that quality care is
provided.
•
Medical audit and resource management activities are inseparable.
•
For audit to be undertaken properly and efficiently the acquisition of
data must be part of normal everyday medical record keeping and must make full
use of information technology as it becomes available.
The
recent emphasis on quality of medical care (not just quantity) has made the
importance of collecting good quality audit data more important than ever
before.
Audit
and the methods used to undertake audit allow us to gather simply information
about our surgical activity. It allows us to look at what happens to our
patients (outcomes) and it allows us to improve practice (completing the audit
loop). A simple audit of the outcome of an operation can pick up variations from
the expected at an early stage. This should reduce future damage to patients and
any legal problems that might accompany disasters.
The
features of a ‘simple’ audit
•
Define the type of audit (e.g. case record review)
•
Identify a representative sample (random selection or consecutive cases)
•
Define the questions to be answered
•
Define the criteria for assessment
•
Establish the standards for comparison
•
Perform the audit
•
Record the results
•
Re-audit at a defined time in the future