This study shows the feasibility of collating audit data and the potential of this approach for describing patterns of care and highlighting general and local deficiencies. Information about levels of performance in large numbers of patients can be used to set standards or norms against which individual practitioners can compare their own activity. Comparison of the health needs of local populations with national data could be used to inform commissioning services. However, audits should employ uniform evidence-based criteria so as to facilitate collation and allow comparison.
The findings indicate that multi-practice audit can encourage the participation of large numbers of practices. Audit groups are co-ordinating multi-practice audits and feeding back information to practices on a comparative basis. However, there are weaknesses in the design and conduct of some audits. Groups should pay more attention to the selection of audit criteria, methods of identifying and sampling patients, data collection procedures, and methods for implementing changes in performance. For other countries that are beginning quality improvement activities, the results of this study emphasize the need to give attention to basic methodological principles.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.