Practice Evaluation Strategies - Clinical Audit Proposal

Running Head: PRACTICE EVALUATION STRATERGIES - CLINICAL AUDIT PROPOSAL
PRACTICE EVALUATION STRATERGIES - CLINICAL AUDIT PROPOSAL
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

PRACTICE EVALUATION STRATERGIES - CLINICAL AUDIT PROPOSAL
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Title of the proposal
The title of the proposal is “infection control in medical and infectious disease ward”.
Introduction:
Clinical audit cycle is a method which is well-defined as "a eminence improvement method
which pursues in order to improve the patient centred care and along with the outcomes of that care with
the help of systematic assessment of care contrary to overt criteria and execution of modification". It is
used to improve the quality of patient care by the help of measuring the outcome or the process. It works
against the standard set on the evidence-based medicine. The essay aims to design a clinical audit cycle
proposal on the infection control in medical and infectious disease ward. Chances of getting infected is
extremely high in infectious ward and medical ward as compared to other places (Mitchell et al., 2017).
Hence, it is necessary to control the infection in medical as well as in the infectious ward. In this essay,
the problem or complication that can be caused in the medical ward or infectious ward is discussed in
detail. The essay also contains the components of the clinical audit cycle such as, identifying the topic,
selecting the standards, data collection, analysing and implementing the change. In the essay audit
proposal is explained such as, Setting, Population and Sample Size, Time Period, Inclusions/Exclusions,
Recruitment of Participants, Data Collection and other factors.
The audit cycle
Clinical audit cycle is defined as the process of which works to improve the health outcomes of the
patient by improving the patient health care (Coyne et al., 2016). The main aim the clinical audit cycle is
to evaluate the incongruities between the actual traditional practice and the standard practice in order to
detect the variations that is needed to increase the quality of patient- care. The audit cycle consist of five
components which are, identifying the topic, selecting the standards, data collection, analysing and

PRACTICE EVALUATION STRATERGIES - CLINICAL AUDIT PROPOSAL
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implementing the change (Chambers & Wakley, 2016). These components aims to improve the patient
health care by excluding the criteria where changes are required. After the changes has been
implemented, it is monitored to evaluate the effectiveness of the clinical audit cycle. The components of
the clinical audit cycle are:
Stage 1: identify the issue or complications
It is the first step of the clinical audit cycle. This step includes the selection of the topic that is to be
audited. It is likely to comprise determining observance to the healthcare methods which produce best
health outcomes for the patients. It depends upon several factors which influences the selection of the
audit such as national standard and the guidelines that exist, specific areas where the actual problems has
been observed, recommendation of the public and patients that can be looked at, clear possible for
enlightening the service delivery, areas consisting high volume, high cost or high risk or high risk,
where improvement can be made (Esposito & Dal Canton, 2014). In this essay, the problem is the
infection which is high in medical wards and infectious ward. It is commonly observed and hence needs
to be controlled.
Stage 2: Setting the standard and criteria:
Audit criteria is defined as the overall criteria of the audit based on which the whole clinical
audit cycle is formulated. The criteria that is considered while setting the standard of the audit is the
outcome or the result of the audit, what are the questions that should be focused while answering the
question. The answer of the audit has to be written in series form which will focus on the audit. The
standard of the audit is measured based on the care that has been provided to the patient (Paton et al.,
2015). A standard has been formulated by considering all the criteria of the audit.

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Stage 3: Data collection:
It is the 3rd step of the clinical audit cycle which deals with the data collection method. The data
that is to be collected should be precise, and should contain all the essential information. Certain
collected details which are audited should be recognised from the beginning. Data collection should
include, The operator group is to be involved, with making any exceptions, several healthcare
professionals should be involved in providing the quality care to the patient, and the time- period, over
which the criteria is to be applied. Sample size is considered and evaluated for statistical value and also
the pragmatically issue of the data collection (Advani et al., 2015). Ethical issue is also to be considered
at the time of data collection such as, the confidentiality and privacy of the patient is respected.
Stage 4: Comparing the performance of the clinical audit cycle with the standard and criteria.
This step deals with analysis of the standard and criteria. Here the result which has been obtained from
the previous experiments are evaluated and compared based on the standard and criteria that has been
formulated for the clinical audit cycle (Ashley et al., 2014).
Stage 5: Implementing the change:
This is the last step of the clinical audit cycle. In this step, the result or change that has been
formulated after comparing it with the standards and criteria are evaluated. The result is then published
and further discussed in order to implement the following change (Advani et al., 2015). Before the
implementation of the change it has to be agreed by each and every member.