Clinical Audit, A Valuable Tool To Improve The Quality Of Dental Care – A Review.

Dr. R.Kathiresan Ravichandran; Dr. Jithesh Jain; Dr.Poojitha M.C; Dr. Sowndarya Gunasekaran

Volume : IX, Issue : VIII, August - 2019

Clinical Audit, A Valuable Tool To Improve The Quality Of Dental Care – A Review.

Dr. R. Kathiresan Ravichandran, Dr. Jithesh Jain, Dr. Poojitha M. C, Dr. Sowndarya Gunasekaran

Abstract :

Evaluation and improvement of quality of care provided to the patients are of crucial importance in the daily clinical practice and in the health policy planning and financing. Different tools have been developed, including incident analysis, health technology assessment and clinical audit. The clinical audit consist of measuring a clinical outcome or a process, against well defined standards set on the principles of evidence based medicine in order to identify the changes needed to improve the quality of care. The purpose of audits is to generate findings that will benefit patients and their programmes of care. Audits should be regularly carried out in a systematic manner as patient welfare is at the heart of any audit process. Audit process should maintain professional and ethical perspectives also. However, clinical audits are often poorly carried out and consequently have minimal effect on improving patient care. Health care organizations should encourage clinicians to participate in regular clinical audit. Thus the aim of this document is to support healthcare staff in understanding the concept and processes of clinical audit, to support best practice in clinical audit and improve awareness of clinical audit as an essential and integral component of clinical practice.