Study Guide – Clinical Audit

Stage 2 - Setting criteria and standards, Page 1

Think: Try defining what an audit criterion is.

How does it compare with this one?

“An audit criterion is a specific statement of what should be happening.”

→ Examples:

"All eligible women aged 25-65 should have had a cervical smear in the last 5 years."

“All asthmatics should have had a Peak Flow recorded in the past year.”

“All drugs in our doctors’ bags should be in-date.”

Tips:

· “asthmatics should have had yearly peak flows” is difficult to measure (how many years will you go back?);

· “asthmatics should have had a PF recorded in the past year” is more practical

For quickest results, make sure that what you are doing is fairly easy to measure, e.g.’ is Read-coded, though don’t let other data-gathering methods put you off if you you’re really interested in the subject
Think about how reliably all the points in your criteria are coded. In the second example above, how confident can you be that all your asthmatics are coded? You may need to do some cross-checking – for example, searching for patients using inhalers who aren’t coded as being asthmatic.
Don’t try to audit too many criteria at once – one or two will keep you busy enough.
Try filling in the gaps of the following phrase to set your audit criterion:

“All patients with xxxxx should have had a yyyyy in the last zzzzz.”

Last update: 16 February 2007