Clinical audit is a process that has been defined as "a quality improvement process that seeks to improve patient care and outcomes through systematic review of care against explicit criteria and the implementation of change".
The key component of clinical audit is that performance is reviewed (or audited) to ensure that what should be done is being done, and if not it provides a framework to enable improvements to be made. It had been formally incorporated in the healthcare systems of a number of countries, for instance in 1993 into the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS), and within the NHS there is a clinical audit guidance group in the UK. .
Read more about Clinical Audit: History, The Integration Into Contemporary Healthcare, Types of Audit, The Place of Clinical Audit in Modern Healthcare, Management of Clinical Audit, Clinical Audit - The Process, Persuading Hospitals and Clinicians To Undertake and Apply Clinical Audit