حسابرسی های بالینی برای بهبود مراقبت های حیاتی: قسمت 2 Clinical audits to improve critical care: Part 2: Analyse, benchmark and feedback

1. Introduction The importance of clinical audits in measuring performance and tracking progress is well recognised by critical care leaders. Clinical audits are a quality improvement process, systematically undertaken to improve clinical practice and subsequent patient outcomes. By providing objective and quantifiable data, clinical audits enable clinicians to compare current performance with explicit, defined criteria, and identify areas for improvement.1 Clinical audits can be used to monitor and track both clinical practice and service delivery changes, and they provide a useful and objec tive tool to motivate healthcare staff to engage in the process of continuous quality improvement. Undertaking a clinical auditin the critical care unit need not be a daunting task. With careful preparation and an informed approach, clinical audits can provide a useful and valuable tool for critical care clinicians. Preparing and committing to a clear audit strategy creates transparency in the process, ensures validity and reliability of the data, and builds confidence in the findings. The success of an audit will depend upon clearly defined goals, motivation of key opinion leaders and stakeholders, appropriate tools and resources (time, staff, equipment), and clear communication. This is Part Two of a two-paper series regarding clinical audits in critical care. In the previous article, the structures and processes needed to prepare and collect data for clinical audits in the critical care setting were addressed. This article features an overview ofthe skills and resources needed to analyse, benchmark and feedback audit data. Together, these articles provide a step-by-step guide, and the remaining five steps are outlined here. These are: 7 Identify appropriate techniques for analysing audit data 8 Identify internal and external audit data for benchmarking 9 Feedback to clinical area and management 10 Plan targeted strategies and processes for continuous improvement 11 Repeat the audit cycle: re-identify areas for improvement