Study Guide – Clinical Audit

Why audit?

Clinical audit is the review of clinical performance, the refining of clinical practice as a result and the measurement of performance against agreed standards – a cyclical process of improving the quality of clinical care.

The Audit Cycle:

The component parts of clinical audit are:

• setting standards;
• measuring current practice;
• comparing results with standards;
• changing practice;
• re-auditing to make sure practice has improved.

This process is known as the audit cycle.

NICE states that:

“Clinical Audits monitor the use of particular interventions, or the care received by patients, against agreed standards. Any departures from ‘best practices’ can then be examined in order to understand and act upon the causes.”  

 

Clinical audit aims to lead to an improvement in the quality of service providing:-

• improved care of patients
• enhanced professionalism of staff
• efficient use of resources
• aid to continuing education
• aid to administration
• accountability to those outside the profession

 

For detailed further comments from NICE see: http://www.nice.org.uk/page.aspx?o=29058

 

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Last update: 03 August 2007