ANZCA & FPM CPD Program resources: Practice audit (clinical support)

• Collecting data on practice in areas that don’t involve direct patient care, reflecting on the results and considering practice changes if areas for improvement are identified.

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• Relevant to those with clinical support roles or those who practice without direct patient care
• May involve one CPD participant or a group in single or multiple disciplines.
• May focus on individual, team, departmental, group, hospital or health service outcomes.

• Undertake a comparison of safety and quality datasets with best practice standards in that domain.
• Undertake an audit of the outcomes of a department, group, hospital or health service, compared with state, national or international benchmarks.
• Undertake an audit of own performance in an area of practice compared with those of peers (department or group of colleagues).
• Undertake an audit of supervision and teaching in your hospital, department or practice
• Undertake a gender equity survey using the Gender equity survey toolkit (see ANZCA & FPM resources section)
• Undertake an environmental sustainability audit using the Environmental sustainability audit tool (see ANZCA & FPM resources section)

• See the Practice audit (clinical support) guideline for further information concerning this activity.

• See also: The CPD for clinical support roles guide for comprehensive support for those with clinical support roles or those who practice without direct patient care

• Following the practice audit (clinical support), you may choose to complete a report of audit findings
• If the audit results are discussed with a colleague, the colleague can record this as a review of ANZCA and FPM fellows activity.
• Following the practice audit (clinical support), you may choose to undertake an individual critical reflection activity n what went well/not so well or what would you do differently in a future audit?

The Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA) has developed a publication titled Raising the Standards: RCoA quality improvement compendium, which provides examples of achievable audits focused mainly on measurement against defined process standards.

ANZCA gratefully acknowledges the RCoA’s willingness to make this document available for our participants. Ready-to-use audit topics and samples relevant to clinical care are presented as a series of chapters (which include perioperative care, pain medicine, intensive care medicine).

The Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators (RACMA) in their “Continuing Professional Development Handbook” include guidance on auditing outcomes of own practice or that of your organisation.3 They outline steps for audits and provide suggestions about audits and relevant standards and indicators.

ANZCA gratefully acknowledges the RACMA’s willingness to make this document available for our participants.

The Medical Council of New Zealand website includes some examples of audits relevant to clinical support or practice without direct patient care.

MATE (Measure for the Anaesthesia Theatre educational Environment) for teaching in the OR:

ACLEI (Anaesthesia Clinical Learning Environment Instrument) for overall anaesthesia learning environment:

Dutch Residency Educational Climate Test (D-RECT):

Post-graduate Hospital Educational Environment Measure (PHEEM):

Learn@ANZCA (formerly Networks) is the college's learning management system.

Note: Some resources located in Learn@ANZCA require that you first register before accessing.

This toolkit contains six documents to assist you in performing a local gender equity survey: