Content area
Full Text
ABSTRACT
Background: Audit is a means of quality control for medical practice by which the profession should regulate its activities with intention of improving overall patient care. Objective of this study was to report three year clinical audit of a general ward and emergency ward medical admissions.
Method: All patients admitted and managed in Department Of General Medicine, Hassan Institute of Medical Sciences, Hassan, Karnataka from January 2009 to December 2011 were included in the study for clinical audit. Data of all medical patients admitted during this period were retrieved from the departmental register. Details of medical treatment, procedures, and complications were recorded from the patient's case sheets.
Results: Total number of patients was 30240, out of which 17804 (58.85%) were males and 12436 (41.14%) were females. Majority (70.02%) of the patients were between 30 to 65 years of age. General ward admissions were 14613 (48.39%) and emergency admissions 15587 (51.61%) cases. The most common general ward admissions were fever(malaria, enteric fever and viral fever) 5471(18.09%), and retro viral disease with co-infection 1859(6.15%), cirrhosis of liver 571(1.88%), chronic renal failure 411(1.37% )and diabetes mellitus1306(4.32%). In emergency admissions, most of the cases were poisoning 5320(17.59%), acute asthma/COPD 3384(11.19%), Myocardial infarction 2196(7.26%), Cerebrovascular accidents 2422(8.0%), Bee sting and Snake bites 1196(3.95%) and hypertensive emergencies 635(2.1%).
Average duration of hospital stay in general ward admissions was 1-8 days and in emergency ward it was 3-16 days. There was an overall mortality rate of 3.9%.
Conclusion: We conclude that clinical audit has potential benefits for patients, physicians, helps to update knowledge & do research. We also recommend the proper computerised audit programs and committees, periodic meetings for its monitoring and evaluation in our institution for providing quality care.
Keywords: Clinical Audit, Treatment, Procedure, Outcome
INTRODUCTION
Audit is defined as a means of quality control for medical practice by which the profession shall regulates activities with the intention of improving overall patient care1. Slee defines clinical audit as 'the evaluation of the quality of medical care as reflected in the medical records'. The term audit is usually associated with accounting -implies numerical review by an outside investigator directed at, among other things, the prevention of fraud 2, but in the clinical setting it is collection of data for...