Clinical audits to improve critical care: Part 2: Analyse, benchmark and feedback

Clinical audits are an essential part of the cycle designed to ensure that patients receive the best quality of care. By measuring the care delivered against established best practice standards, it becomes possible to identify shortcomings and to plan targeted strategies and processes for continuous improvement. The success of a clinical audit depends upon defined goals, motivation of stakeholders, appropriate tools and resources, and clear communication. In part 1 of this series, an overview of the structures and processes needed to prepare and collect data for clinical audits in the critical care setting was provided [A.J. Ullman, G. Ray-Barruel, C.M. Rickard, M. Cooke, Clinical audits to improve critical care: Part 1 Prepare and collect data, Aust Crit Care, 2017, in press]. In part 2, we discuss how to analyse the collected audit data, benchmark findings with internal and external data sets, and feedback audit results to critical care clinicians to promote evidence-based practice and improve patient outcomes.