Practice Audit Statement
Position Statement
The Clinical Practice Committee recognizes the importance of Clinical Practice Audit. Regulatory authorities and privileging bodies are increasingly going to require physicians to audit their practices to demonstrate their adherence to Best Practice Principles, Guidelines and Patient Outcomes.
While Clinical Practice Audit is well established in countries such as UK, Australia and New Zealand, in North America the focus has tended to be on morbidity and mortality conferences as a tool to monitor outcomes. The importance of Clinical Practice Audit not only for practice enhancement but also in overall clinical governance is increasingly recognised.
The Clinical Practice Committee recommends that Canadian General Surgeons adopt audit as part of Clinical Practice. The Canadian Association of General Surgeons is actively pursuing a national strategy for the development of Clinical Practice Audit and will focus on topics that will avoid the duplication of data collection already performed by institutional and provincial authorities. Software to facilitate the process and the evidence surrounding audit is freely available on https://cags-accg.ca/
