Clinical Audit & Quality Improvement Projects

on

Guide to Describe Clinical Audits and Quality Improvement Projects In Your Interview!

Clinical audits are a very important part of NHS setups. New Doctors joining the NHS are expected to be involved in audits and quality improving projects, and is commonly asked during the interview. 


Common Questions

  • What is a clinical audit. What are the steps of clinical audit? 
  • Example of a clinical audit that you undertook.
  • What is the difference between audit and research?
  • Why are audits important in the medical setting?

General Points for Creating Your Response: 

Keep the following points in mind when crafting a responce for this question: 

  • The interviewers will see if you understand the process of audit or not. So you will need to define clinical audit in your own words and also explain the steps of an audit cycle.
  • Do NOT answer with a fancy definition! 
  • You should be ready to handle one or more follow-up questions on the audit process, so it is better to be prepared to explain each step. 
  • You will have to craft your answer more than once, each time you will notice something redundant and unecessary. Do not worry, keep perfecting your response.


Question #1: What is a clinical audit? 

Always be careful when you are asked to define something. DO NOT use ready-made definations as these will be too common and will not make you stand out among other candidates. The interviewers are looking for your understanding of the concept not how well have you crammed the defination. If you are well versed in the defination; however fail to make an impression on the interviewer that you understand the basics of the concept, you will not score good in this question.

Defination

Audit is a review of current health practices against set national guidelines and standards, which is designed to ensure that we provide the best level of care to our patients

Steps of Clinical Audit

  • Identify the issue or problem to initiate an audit
  • Identify a standard 
  • Collect data according to a structured questionnaire on current practices
  • Assess the current practices against standard guidelines 
  • Publish and present your results and make recommendations
  • Implement changes, alter protocols, further trainings, raising awareness of staff 
  • Closing the loop: Re-audit after a time to see if the changes have been implemented 


Question #2: Difference between clinical audit and research?

This is the most common follow-up question in the inteviews. 

Audit

  • It is a process which compares clinical practice against set standards
  • Are the guiedlines being followed or not?
  • Are you aligned with the best practices?

Research

  • Create new knowledge that can be used to develop new standards 
  • Whether new treatments or investigations work or not?
  • Determine if one treatment is better than the other

Research helps to establish guidelines and standards, while audits check whether you are aligned with those guidelines and standards or not. 

 

Question #3: Tell us about your audit/QIP experience

This question is about your audit experience, not to define audit. So beware of this and don’t start spitting out the definition and its steps. The interviewers are looking for an example. They want to see your understanding of the audit process through an example. Use the above mentioned steps to answer this question. There are however some points that you need to keep in mind. 

Cover the following in your answer:

  • Number of audits that you have undertaken 
  • What was your role in the audit (initiation, data collection, data analysis , or presentation etc)
  • Title of your audit 
  • Steps of your audit process (from selecting a problem till making proposals) 
  • Whether you completed the audit cycle with a re-audit or not? 
  • What was your role in the audit (initiation, data collection, data analysis , or presentation etc) 
  • Was the audit presented or not? 
  • What experience or lesson you got from the audit process?


If you have not done any audit: 

  • It would be difficult for you to score any marks if you have not done any audit in your clinical experience. 
  • However, you can still try to explain your understanding of audit and its process, and your committment to undertake an audit in the NHS or in your own clinical practice. 


Question #4: Why are audits important in medical settings?

Benefits of Audit:

  • Ensures that quality of care in maintained at a set standard.
  • Highlights problems and implements solutions 
  • Encourages to make better use of resources 
  • Promotes efficiency 
  • Help to train and develop junior doctors and staff
  • Help to learn about service improvement and provision 
  • Collected data can be used for appraisal and assessment process