title: Validation of Australian data in the Australasian Vascular Audit.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Accuracy of data is important in any clinical audit. It is necessary to determine how complete the dataset is as well as the accuracy of the data that have been entered. The Australasian Vascular Audit has been operational for 4 years and a data validation process has been undertaken.
  
  
  METHODS
  An independent data source is available, which is collected by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. This collects all public and private hospital data and is available for interrogation. Similarly, private-only data are available from the Medicare website. This has been compared with the Australasian Vascular Audit dataset to establish completeness of data collection. Quality of data collected has been verified by comparing accuracy of data fields with that present in patient records in a 5% random sample.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For the 2 years studied, there was a 63% capture rate in Australia for all patients. In the private sector, only 50% of patients were captured with a significant decrease noted in 2013. The quality of data entered had a 2.6% error rate.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is a need to increase compliance with vascular audit in Australia and data accuracy is acceptable but could be improved.
authors: Australasian Vascular Audit, Australia and New Zealand Society for Vascular Surgery, Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
authors: Charles Barry
authors: CB
authors: Beiles
authors: Bernie M
authors: BM
authors: Bourke
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008485:Medical Audit / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014656:Vascular Surgical Procedures / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
keywords: Australia; clinical audit; database; quality of health care; vascular surgical procedure