This correspondent, having been released on parole after 37 years in the N.H.S. is reduced to enquiring from erstwhile colleagues as to what has happened on the health scene in Cornwall in the last few months. So far the answers have been identical "Nothing". "Nothing" includes the formal opening of the new operating theatre in Penzance with its immediate closure for relaying of the floor. One ...

OBJECTIVES To investigate the feasibility of obtaining signed consent for submission of patient identifiable data to a national clinical audit database and to identify factors influencing the consent process and its success. DESIGN Feasibility study. SETTING Seven paediatric intensive care units in England. PARTICIPANTS Parents/guardians of patients, or patients aged 12-16 years old, appr...

OBJECTIVE To determine general practitioners' attitudes to medical audit and to establish what initiatives are already being undertaken; to define future ideas for audit and perceived difficulties in implementing audit in primary care. DESIGN Analysis of responses to a self administered postal questionnaire. SETTING Urban conurbation with a population of about 750,000. PARTICIPANTS 386 ge...

Clinical audit is regarded as an essential component of clinical governance, which is expected to result in improvements in patient care and to assure trusts that their services meet national quality standards. Several studies have examined the views of health care professionals on clinical audit. An overview by Johnston et al (2000) noted that perceived benefits include improved communication ...

BACKGROUND Clinical audit is an important tool to improve patient care and outcomes in health service. A significant proportion of time and economic resources are spent on activities related to clinical audit. Completion of audit cycle is essential to confirm the improvements in healthcare delivery. We aimed this study to evaluate audits carried out within trauma and orthopaedic unit of a teach...

BACKGROUND Clinical audits have emerged as a potential tool to summarize the clinical performance of healthcare over a specified period of time. However, the effectiveness of audit and feedback has shown inconsistent results and the impact of audit and feedback on clinical performance has not been evaluated for COPD exacerbations. In the present study, we analyzed the results of two consecutive...

Clinical practice audit is potentially useful for selfassessment and quality improvement in medicine. The audit process has been shown to help decrease cesarean section rates, improve seizure management, and improve physician prescribing of antibiotics for upper respiratory infections, to name just a few benefits. Much of what is called “audit” in the medical literature could more appropriately...

The aim of this paper is to start a debate about ethical issues associated with the practice of clinical audit. This is an area that has not received much consideration. The role of clinical audit is to raise general clinical standards. The ethical issues of clinical audit may have far-reaching consequences for clinicians, patients, health care providers and purchasers. Guidance is required to ...

Background and Objectives: Monitoring of health organizations by the regulatory bodies is crucial to ensure high performance of health system. Although Iranian health settings are monitored by the MOHME in various ways, periodic evaluation of their continuous commitment to the national licensure standards in health domain is rare. The aim of the present study was to highlight t...