Clinical audit is a process for improving healthcare quality through observation and review of practices and standards. It can include hygiene, procedures, treatments, and error rates. Different frameworks measure quality, and steps involve identifying problems, comparing rates, and implementing changes. Clinical audit systems reflect a facility’s health policy and can improve patient outcomes. Modern technology enables easy cataloging and analysis of data, making it a vital part of safety review for healthcare and other systems.
A clinical audit is a system for improving the quality of healthcare. It is not a financial audit, but rather a kind of observation of medical care in a specific system, a review of practices and standards that lead to better patient outcomes. A clinical audit could be seen as related to the general ‘standard of care’ used to ensure quality in a healthcare system.
Forms of clinical audit have been adopted in many countries and regions of the world. Many different terms can be applied to this general process, but the idea of implementing improved quality of health care through modern processes of supervision and observation is common to many national health systems. In the UK, for example, the idea of a ‘clinical audit’ is a key part of the country’s national health system.
Items included in the clinical audit could relate to general hygiene in a facility. Other criteria might include enumeration of procedures, consideration of methods for treatments, or looking for episodes of surgical or medication error. Analysts might also reference additional demographic data such as a mortality or morbidity rate along with clinical audit data.
Several different types of clinical audit frameworks provide different ways to measure health care quality. One is a “standards-based audit” in which a standard of care is proposed as an applicable benchmark. Another is an “adverse event audit” in which analysts specifically look at rates of problematic errors or negative outcomes. Hospitals and other facilities may also pursue “medical market research” through tools such as patient surveys or focus groups.
Clinical audit processes often include multiple steps designed to effectively address issues. A first step might have to do with identifying a health problem or negative outcome. A further step could be to compare that result with rates in a variety of health care systems. A final step often involves implementing changes for more positive results.
Outside observers can tell a lot about a facility’s health policy by analyzing its clinical audit systems. How governments regulate healthcare reflects on underlying public health and safety policy and shows how forward-looking regulation can improve patient outcomes and overall quality of life in a given system. Much of the analytical process around things like clinical audit relies on the ability of modern technology to easily catalog and work with large amounts of data. This type of measurement of demographic situations is likely to remain a vital part of high-level safety review for healthcare, as well as many other types of systems, such as manufacturing.
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