HQQ Getting Clinical Audit Right to Benefit Patients

Getting Clinical Audit Right to Benefit Patients is a 214 page practical guide for clinicians on how to carry out clinical audits that result in benefits to patient care. The book is easy-to-read with a number of diagrams, charts and examples. The text is based on the evidence base on good practice in measuring the quality of patient care and acting on the findings. Practical advice in the book starts with how to use an ethical framework to select the right subjects for clinical audits. The book includes extensive how-to guidance on designing a clinical audit properly, including how to formulate objectives for a clinical audit properly, involve key stakeholders in the subject of an audit, and decide on sampling and data collection strategies. The book emphasizes the importance of valid explicit measures of the quality of care, reliable data collection, clinician review of findings using implicit clinical judgement, recognizing systems contributors to problems in the delivery of patient care, and identifying actions that are likely to produce improvement in patient care when needed. The book includes extensive references to research on various aspects of the clinical audit process and a detailed glossary of terms. Over 3000 copies of the book have been sold for use by clinical staff.