Table 3 Initial recommendations for audit and feedback and quality improvement reports in primary care
Dissemination | Discuss with each practice who the report should be sent to, i.e. prescribing lead |
Actively involve practice based pharmacists – include on email distribution lists | |
Suggest that if the report is forwarded onwards by a lead GP/practice manager, the next recipient acknowledges receipt and how the report will be used, if at all | |
Communication with practices | Emphasise that the reports might save practices time on audit activity |
Communication with patients | Provision of guidance letter and example patient communication with the report |
Communication within local networks | Include resources and suggestions to encourage practices to discuss how they have used reports within their local primary care networks |
Content/topic | Aim for clinical content and topics that are in line with current local and national priorities for quality improvement |
Structure of report | Provide individual patient identifiers if possible to expedite case finding |
Prioritise information on patients needing review at the beginning of the report, avoid lengthy background contextualising the report | |
Incorporate a tool to allow flagging of patients included in previous searches, so if they were excluded by a clinician from the quality indicator they dont' have to go back over the same searches/exclusion criteria |