Clinical Audit

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Clinical Terms
A systematic process that improves patient care through reviewing clinical performance against explicit standards and implementing changes.

What is Clinical Audit and why is it important?

What is ?

Clinical audit is a quality improvement process that seeks to enhance patient care and outcomes by systematically reviewing care against explicit criteria and implementing change where indicated. It's a cyclical process involving measuring current practice, comparing it to established standards, implementing improvements, and re-auditing to confirm positive change. In Primary Care Networks, clinical audits help identify variations in practice, reduce clinical risk, and demonstrate commitment to delivering high-quality, evidence-based healthcare services across member practices.

Clinical Audit Best Practices

What is ?

  • Select topics for audit that are high-volume, high-risk, or problem-prone areas where improvements would significantly benefit patients
  • Ensure multidisciplinary team involvement to gain diverse perspectives and increase buy-in for implementing changes
  • Use clearly defined, evidence-based standards against which performance can be measured
  • Create detailed action plans with specific responsibilities and timelines for implementing improvements
  • Complete the audit cycle by re-auditing to determine whether improvements have been achieved

Use Clinical Audit in a Sentence

What is ?

  1. The PCN conducted a clinical audit on diabetes management, revealing opportunities to improve HbA1c monitoring across member practices.
  2. Following the clinical audit, the practice implemented a new recall system for patients with chronic conditions, resulting in better compliance with NICE guidelines.
  3. The clinical audit coordinator presented findings to the multidisciplinary team, highlighting areas of excellent practice and identifying where standardisation across the network would benefit patients.
Frequently Asked Questions about
Clinical Audit

What does Clinical Audit mean?

Clinical audit is a quality improvement process that seeks to improve patient care and outcomes by systematically reviewing clinical practice against explicit criteria and implementing necessary changes. It involves measuring current performance against standards, identifying areas for improvement, implementing changes, and re-auditing to confirm that improvement has occurred. In Primary Care Networks, clinical audits help standardise care across member practices and drive continuous improvement.

How does Clinical Audit differ from research?

While both clinical audit and research aim to improve healthcare, they have distinct purposes and methodologies. Clinical audit measures existing practice against established standards to identify improvements needed, with no intention to generate new knowledge. Research, however, aims to establish what best practice should be by generating new knowledge. Audit asks "Are we following best practice?" while research asks "What is best practice?" Additionally, clinical audit typically doesn't require formal ethical approval, whereas research involving patients usually does.

What are the key stages of the Clinical Audit cycle?

The clinical audit cycle comprises five key stages: 1) Preparation and planning (selecting a topic, setting objectives, and defining standards), 2) Measuring performance (collecting data on current practice), 3) Implementing change (developing and delivering an action plan to improve care), 4) Re-auditing (collecting new data to assess improvements), and 5) Sustaining improvement (embedding changes in routine practice). This cyclical process ensures continuous quality improvement rather than a one-off assessment, which is particularly valuable in Primary Care Networks to maintain standardised quality across practices.

Who should be involved in Clinical Audits within a Primary Care Network?

Clinical audits in Primary Care Networks should involve a multidisciplinary team including GPs, practice nurses, pharmacists, healthcare assistants, practice managers, and administrative staff. PCN Clinical Directors often provide leadership, while quality improvement leads or audit coordinators may manage the process. Patient representatives should also be involved where appropriate to provide valuable perspectives on care quality. This collaborative approach ensures diverse viewpoints, increases ownership of the findings, and improves implementation of recommended changes across all network practices.

What are good topics for Clinical Audit in Primary Care Networks?

Effective clinical audit topics in Primary Care Networks should focus on high-volume, high-risk, or problem-prone areas where improvements would significantly benefit patients. Suitable topics include management of long-term conditions (diabetes, COPD, asthma), prescribing practices (antibiotic stewardship, medication reviews), referral patterns, cancer screening uptake, vaccination rates, and emergency hospital admissions from member practices. Topics should also align with national priorities, such as QOF indicators, NICE guidelines, or NHS Long Term Plan objectives, and address areas where variation exists between practices within the network.

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