title: Incidence of epidural blood patch following obstetric regional analgesia in private Australian anaesthetic practice.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Collection of audit data about epidural blood patches has traditionally relied on voluntary reporting, which is notoriously incomplete. The records of Medicare-funded Australian private obstetric practice, which represents 30% of all deliveries, allow a novel method of central data collection and retrieval.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data relating to all deliveries, epidurals and blood patches in private practice in Australia over a two-year period were retrieved from the Health Insurance Commission.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The overall rate of epidural analgesia in labour was estimated at 30% and the proportion of epidurals that progressed to blood patching was 0.35%. The rate of epidural blood patching varied between states from 0.18% to 0.56%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Despite certain limitations of our data interpretation, we regard this technique as a useful audit tool capable of generating accurate and robust audit data that might otherwise be unobtainable.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthesia, Royal Women's Hospital, Carlton 3053, Australia. andrew.buettner@rwh.org.au
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Buettner
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Popham
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Morgan
mesh_terms: D015360:Analgesia, Epidural / Q000009:adverse effects*; D016362:Analgesia, Obstetrical / Q000009:adverse effects*; D017217:Blood Patch, Epidural / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006261:Headache / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D011247:Pregnancy