The continuous enhancement of patient care quality is a fundamental goal for all healthcare systems. Clinical audit is a systematic approach used by healthcare professionals to examine their performance and services against established benchmarks. It measures the quality of care delivered to patients, ensuring services align with the best available evidence and professional standards. This process is integral to quality assurance, helping identify areas for improvement.
Defining Clinical Audit and its Core Objective
Clinical audit is a quality improvement process that enhances patient care and outcomes through the systematic review of care against explicit criteria, followed by the implementation of change. It measures whether current practice adheres to recognized standards of best practice. The objective is to ensure that known effective practices are consistently delivered, not to discover new treatments.
The process relies on establishing “explicit criteria,” which are measurable standards or guidelines for performance assessment. These standards are derived from authoritative sources like national guidelines or evidence-based local policies. Comparing current practice against these standards allows teams to identify any gap.
The ultimate aim is to close this gap between actual and optimal practice. If care falls short of the standard, the process mandates taking action to improve the service. This structured approach is a fundamental component of professional accountability and quality governance.
The Cyclical Process of Clinical Audit
Quality improvement is achieved through the clinical audit cycle, emphasizing continuous process rather than a one-time event. The cycle begins by selecting a clinical topic, often one associated with high risk or high volume. The first formal step is defining the measurable standards or criteria of best practice that will serve as the benchmark.
The next stage involves systematically collecting data on current performance related to the topic. This measures actual care delivery, often involving reviewing patient records or surveying patient experiences. The information is then analyzed and compared against the established standards to determine compliance.
The comparison yields the audit findings, which are communicated to the relevant clinical team. If performance is below standard, an action plan must be developed and implemented to address the shortfall. This plan details necessary changes, such as staff training, procedural updates, or resource adjustments.
The cycle concludes with the re-audit, which verifies the effectiveness of the implemented changes. After a suitable period for the changes to become embedded, the data collection and comparison process is repeated using the same methodology. The cycle is complete only when the re-audit demonstrates measurable improvement and sustained adherence to the standard.
Clinical Audit Versus Other Healthcare Assessments
Clinical audit is often confused with other healthcare assessments, particularly medical research and service evaluation, though their purposes differ. Medical research generates new, generalizable knowledge, often asking, “Does this new intervention work?” Research typically tests a hypothesis and may require review by a research ethics committee.
Clinical audit, in contrast, ensures adherence to existing standards of best care, asking, “Are we correctly applying what we already know works?” It deals only with interventions already established in routine use. This focus on measuring adherence to predefined criteria is the main distinction.
Service evaluation is a distinct activity designed solely to define the current standard a service achieves without reference to a predefined, evidence-based standard. For example, a service evaluation might ask, “What is the average waiting time?” to describe the current state for management purposes. Clinical audit requires a specific standard, such as “95% of patients should wait less than 15 minutes,” to measure performance against.