NHS that the various professional groups have remained primarily in their tribes (not least in their reading habits), and we want this to be a journal that will be useful to all groups. FIONA MOSS Audit Specialist and Respiratory Physician and Editor of Quality in Health Care, Central Middlesex Hospital, London NWlO 7NS RICHARD SMITH Editor, BMJ I Department of Health. Medical auidit in the hos...

Issues concerning the quality of care service improvement have become of national importance in the health-care system for both developed and developing countries. Internal audit is effective and efficient method to improve the quality of care in various health care facilities. Data from 452 outpatient cards of the case patients with arterial hypertension were analyzed, the level of awareness a...

Until now, medical practice in the United Kingdom has, unlike in medical research, largely resisted ethics committee scrutiny of clinical audit. I support this position. On what grounds do I do so? Are there suYcient diVerences between medical research and medical audit to reliably sustain this thesis? I shall argue that research ethics committees may be operating under philosophical constraint...

An adequate documentation in medical records is essential for patient safety and high quality care. The aim of this study was to evaluate documentation by dietitians in Swedish medical records. A retrospective audit of147 dietetic notes in electronic medical records was performed. The audit focused at documentation of essential parts of the dietetic care, as well as other quality aspects such a...

acquire those skills are rarely offered. Consequently a nursing perspective on audit methods tends to select techniques such as continuous observation, peer review, and case study approaches rather than a quantitative approach. The picture emerging then is one in which different health care groups working ostensibly together will perceive different topics as areas for quality improvement, will ...

A registration network of family practices (Registratienet Huisartspraktijken) has recently been established in the Netherlands. Forty two general practitioners in 15 practices, with a patient population of 80,000 people, are using a general practice health information system to establish a central computerized anonymous database containing certain patient characteristics and all relevant healt...

INTRODUCTION A medical audit on the prenatal care program in the Vila Municipal Health Center, Pelotas, RS, Brazil, was described with the purpose of verifying the aspects of the medical process and improving the program's effectiveness. METHODS Data from prenatal specific records were collected. Pregnant women with delivery due date in 1997 and in the first semester of 1998 were included in ...

BACKGROUND Stroke is one of the leading medical conditions in the Philippines. Over 500,000 Filipinos suffer from stroke annually. Provision of evidence-based medical and rehabilitation management for stroke patients has been a challenge due to existing environmental, social, and local health system issues. Thus, existing western guidelines on stroke rehabilitation were contextualized to draft ...

We audited verbal handover of information by anaesthetists to recovery room nurses based on Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation. In Audit A, 100 handovers for elective procedures were included. For audit B, a second cohort of 100 patients was examined post educational session. There was an improvement in handover of medical background (46.15% Audit A, 77% Audit B, p < 0.001) an...

Introduction The Physicians advocacy institute (Pai) is a not-for-profit 501(c)(6) advocacy organization established in 2006 with funds from settlement agreements in the multidistrict litigation (mDl) class action against major national for-profit health insurers. Pai’s board of Directors is comprised of Ceos of medical societies involved in the mDl and a physician who was a named plaintiff in ...