New website aims to develop clinical audit response

Practices accredited as General Practices or Hospitals under the RCVS Practice Standards Scheme must show that they have a system for monitoring and discussing the clinical outcome of cases and for acting on the results.

To improve the meaningfulness of this exercise, it would be helpful if benchmarks existed against which practices could measure their outcomes and compare clinical practices.

One of the organisations with representation on the RCVS’s Practice Standards Group, the Society for Practising Veterinary Surgeons (SPVS), has launched a data-gathering website as a first step towards developing such an audit resource: http://www.howdoido.org/.

The website asks veterinary surgeons to complete a short questionnaire about how they typically carry out clinical procedures.

Three procedures are included, one relating to each of small animal, large animal and equine practice: the repair of anterior cruciate rupture in a dog; the castration of colts; and the correction of a left displaced abomasum in cattle. Data will be anonymised before collation and analysis take place.

“This is a small but significant step towards establishing a benchmarking process,” according to SPVS Junior Vice-President and RCVS Council Member Jacqui Molyneux.

“We need at least 200 entries in each section to gain significant results and would urge as many vets as possible to join in – it will only take ten minutes of your time. There are no right or wrong answers, we just want to get an idea of what vets are doing.”

Once the information has been gathered and analysed, an outcome audit website will be developed.

The project is supported by other organisations that are part of the RCVS Practice Standards Group: British Small Animal Veterinary Association, British Equine Veterinary Association, British Cattle Veterinary Association, British Veterinary Association, British Veterinary Hospitals Association and the Veterinary Practice Managers Association.