Evaluation of medical audit.

Evaluation of medical audit.

OBJECTIVE To review current knowledge of the effectiveness of medical audit programmes as a whole and of specific interventions within these programmes, as a means of changing clinical behaviour. CRITERIA FOR INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION OF PUBLISHED REPORTS: Articles listed on Medline from 1985-92 with key words "quality assurance" or "medical audit", and "evaluation" and relevant references from t...

Medical audit: in need of evaluation.

In 1976, two years after the introduction of mandatory quality assurance in the United States healthcare system' and at a time of growing debate about the benefits of that investment,2 Charles Phelps, an American economist, wrote: "The evidence used to justify these various regulations of quality has been, to be generous, sparse. The primary justification for many of these programs is that the ...

Hospital case notes and medical audit: evaluation of non-response.

Approaches to medical audit.

The last two or three years have seen an explosion of interest in medical audit, a phrase hitherto barely used in the UK except by a few hardy pioneers (for references, see' 2). Then in quick succession in the last two years appeared the Confidential Enquiry on Perioperative Deaths,3 the Report of the Royal College of Physicians on Medical Audit,4 and the White Paper "Working for patients".5 Th...

Medical records, medical audit, and community hospitals.

A survey of community hospitals suggests a need for improving medical records and communications and introducing review procedures. A new and extended system based on an A4 size unit record is described. The benefits of a medical audit procedure in which all general practitioners and senior nurses participate are discussed.