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Closing the loop: audit in infection control

G L French1

  • 1Department of Microbiology, UMDS, Guy's Hospital, London, UK.

The Journal of Hospital Infection
|August 1, 1993
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Closing the audit loop in infection control involves setting standards, testing practice, correcting deficiencies, and re-auditing. Auditing infection control guidelines and adherence is feasible, but measuring nosocomial infection rates requires risk adjustment for accurate comparison.

Area of Science:

  • Healthcare Management
  • Infection Prevention and Control
  • Clinical Auditing

Background:

  • The audit cycle is a four-stage process: standard setting, practice testing, correction, and re-auditing.
  • Effective infection control relies on established guidelines and adherence to these protocols.
  • Measuring healthcare outcomes is crucial for quality improvement.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To outline the components of the audit cycle in the context of infection control.
  • To discuss the feasibility of auditing infection control practices and outcomes.
  • To highlight the challenges and methods for auditing nosocomial infection rates.

Main Methods:

  • Describing the four phases of the clinical audit cycle.
  • Evaluating the auditability of infection control guidelines and their practical application.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Proposing the use of adjusted nosocomial infection rates and prevalence surveys for outcome measurement.

    • Main Results:

    • The audit cycle includes setting standards, testing, correcting, and re-auditing to close the loop.
    • Auditing the existence, acceptability, and adherence to infection control guidelines is practical.
    • Auditing nosocomial infection rates is challenging and necessitates risk adjustment for valid comparisons.

    Conclusions:

    • Completing the audit cycle is essential for improving healthcare practices.
    • While guideline adherence is auditable, outcome measures like infection rates require sophisticated approaches.
    • Risk-adjusted prevalence surveys are recommended for reliable auditing of infection control outcomes.