Jonathan Lam1, Josephine Richards1, Nigel Morlet1, Tanya Parsons2

Background: Audit is a valuable tool for assessing and improving clinical practice. It is now a requirement of many medical colleges. Individuals in non surgical special interest groups and rural locations often struggle to find audit topics which will result in meaningful findings and provide useful learning experiences. The WA branch has embarked on an evolving program of co-operative clinical audit.

Benchmarking/standard: Thus far, five clinical co-operative audits have been run in WA. Topics covered have included intraocular steroid injection, plaquenil screening, glistenings in intraocular lenses, neuro-imaging practices, and colour vision testing audits. The process has evolved from a single page tick box questionnaire discussed at a meeting, to a 5 stage clinical audit cycle cycle. This involves a pre-test online survey, a didactic educational session (available at a meeting and online), submission of clinical cases online, a collegial discussion of analysed pooled results and a final post-test survey, testing improvement in knowledge and clinical practice.

Results: Co-operative audits have been enthusiastically supported by over half of our branch members. Positive feedback has been received indicating that ophthalmologists appreciate facilitation of the process and value the learning opportunity. Lively collegial discussions and locally initiated research opportunities for our community have ensued. Improved knowledge and changes to clinical practice have been demonstrated.

Recommendations: A co-operative audit library using the above online resources should be maintained as a RANZCO college CPD tool.