A set of tools for medical audit

This site provides primary care clinicians with medical audit tools to assess and improve the management of their patients. Audit results are displayed in anonymous manner, in the format of a benchmark - both compared with others and also showing personal change over time.

This website should be of benefit to individual as well as groups of primary care practitioners. The reports, if included as part of a professional Personal Development Plan, could provide evidence of medical audit (and action taken as a result) for the purpose of annual appraisal and revalidation requirements in the future. Commissioning bodies and providers could also benefit from the process, by completing repeated audit cycles (ie data collection, evaluation of reprorts, intervention and re-audit) through reduction in unplanned hospital referral and admission.

This system has been developed by Dr Mark L Levy, who has had nearly 30 years of participating in and designing medical audits.

Medical audit is a proven method for improving both the process and the quality of care for patients. The unique feature of this website system for audit is the provision of immediate feedback, after each new audit result is entered online, comparing an individual clinicians' changes in care over time as well as with that provided by of other clinicians world wide. The data are all anonymised, and only registered users, with passwords, will be able to see their own data for comparison with others. Unregistered users will be able to see the amalgamated data for everyone, without individual comparison.

The first module produced was the Unscheduled attendance at general practice surgeries for asthma episodes (UNSAFE) Audit and is based upon the international GINA (www.ginasthma.org) guidelines for asthma care, and the indicators enable clinicians to assess their adherence to guidelines. Participants will be provided with a detailed audit report after entering each batch of 10 patients.

The second module is the Audit of Self-Administered Injectable Adrenaline Prescription in Primary Care which aims to facilitate improvement in management of prescriptions for patients with life threatening allergic conditions. This audit is in the final stages of preparation and anyone wishing to participate, may start with the baseline audit and returning this to Mark Levy for log on detailsclick here The indicators produced by this audit will enable clinicians to assess the way they prescribe and monitor patients ability to use their adrnaline auto-injectors. Participants will be provided with a detailed audit report after entering each batch of 10 patients.

Participation in the first two audits is free of charge and were developed through generous grants from Brent Primary Care Trust in London and Asthma UK (Unsafe) and Lincoln Medical Ltd (Adrenaline Audit).

Other audits will follow, to include other disciplines in General Practice.