A survey of surgical audit in Australia: whither clinical governance?

A postal survey was undertaken to determine the extent of surgical audit in Australian public hospitals in the context of clinical governance. Participants were 88 surgical units from 74 Australian public hospitals in 1998 with more than 70 beds. The main outcome measures were performance of audit, methods used, frequency, documentation and perceived adequacy of resources and comparison of performance with Royal Australasian College of Surgeons requirements for re-certification. The main findings were that most units performed audit, but over two-thirds declared that they had insufficient resources to conduct audit according to College requirements, while a substantial proportion did not comply with other published guidelines for the conduct of audit meetings. The conclusion from this survey is that surgical audit will be unable to play its part in quality initiatives inherent in the clinical governance concept unless appropriately resourced.