An interdistrict audit of vascular surgery.
The Interdistrict Audit of Vascular Surgery project entails the compilation of data on all new vascular patients who are referred, investigated and/or treated in three UK health authorities. The main aim is to create an accurate database containing process/outcome criteria, which can be interpreted as quality measures and which facilitates review of current practices. Data collection, which began in June 1990 and is scheduled to continue until March 1992, is by a series of proformas. Currently 503 patients are registered on the database, and preliminary results have shown that 28% of initial assessment patients go on to have an arteriogram, 9% are admitted to the hospital immediately and 7% are discharged back to the care of their general practitioner. At follow-up consultation, the patient's main presenting symptom had been cured in 38% of cases, but remained unchanged in 27% and had worsened in 5%. The paper concludes by examining the project against some success criteria and recounting some of the practical difficulties of data collection encountered so far.
Lyons
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Department of Public Health, Brighton General Hospital, East Sussex, UK.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods; D016208:Databases, Factual; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008485:Medical Audit / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D013222:State Medicine / Q000592:standards; D006113:United Kingdom; D014656:Vascular Surgical Procedures / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data