title: Morbidity and mortality audits: "How to"for family practice.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  While professions hold their members responsible for self-regulation, many physicians have insufficient information about outcome measures in their practices to judge performance and are inexperienced in performing audits to gather the information they need to judge performance.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To develop a structure and process to support family doctors with little experience in doing quality improvement studies to conduct morbidity and mortality (M&M) audits.
  
  
  METHODS
  A family medicine teaching group provides members on a rotating basis to an M&M review committee. The committee meets eight times a year and has done four audits, the most comprehensive on the topic of preventable hospital admissions. Both implicit and explicit criteria were incorporated into decision making. Strengths and limitations of the audit process and practice changes that resulted from the audit are discussed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Morbidity and mortality audits can vary in rigour. To promote physicians' interest in and commitment to audits, factors considered should reflect the goals, needs, skills, and time available of the physicians involved. Practical learning often results from simple projects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine, St Mary's Hospital, Montreal, Quebec. mark.yaffe@mcgill.ca
authors.forename: Mark J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Yaffe
authors.forename: Geeta
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Still
authors.forename: Miriam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Boillat
authors.forename: Balbina
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Russillo
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Schiff
authors.forename: Donald
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sproule
mesh_terms: D005194:Family Practice / Q000592:standards*; D005568:Forms and Records Control; D006801:Humans; D008485:Medical Audit / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration; D009017:Morbidity; D009026:Mortality; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods; D010044:Outpatient Clinics, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D018024:Peer Review, Health Care; D011367:Professional Staff Committees; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011792:Quebec