[Medical audit in laboratory medicine. A description of the course and some results]

All general practitioners of the Danish counties of Funen, Vejle and North Jutland were invited to participate in a medical audit concerning laboratory medicine organised by the Audit Project Odense (APO) in co-operation with the Consultative Arrangement for General Practice, emanating from the clinical/chemical departments of Funen. During three weeks the participants registered all clinical problems which would result in one or more laboratory tests. APO performed computer registrations and analyses of the results where upon each participant received a reply letter indicating the results of his own as well as the group's registrations. At a subsequent meeting the participants discussed the conception of "good general practice" as regards the use of laboratory medicine within defined clinical problems. The course of the audit demonstrated that the APO method is suitable for identification of a number of professional problems related to general practitioners' use of laboratory medicine and to reveal the variation in general practitioners' handling of laboratory medicine. Furthermore, the project showed that continuous quality development demands profound study of and research into the professional problems which the general practitioners encounter when using laboratory medicine.