Clinical Audit Tools

The Clinical Audit Tool (CAT) suite of products, comprising CAT 4 and Cleansing CAT is a data extraction tool created by Pen Computer Systems Pty Ltd.  When used effectively, CAT scrutinizes the practice’s aggregated patient information and presents it in an easy-to-understand graphical format. 

The data analysis functions can be customised to suit practice needs, filtering by demographics, conditions and medications, allowing practices to target patients with particular needs or specific health risk profiles.  CAT is compatible with the majority of clinical desktop software.

The Cleansing CAT module allows the easy identification of critical missing patient data by providing a set of predefined reports. These reports provide data that would otherwise require multiple filter selections and recalculation.

The reports available allow for identification of: missing demographic data missing clinical / accreditation data indicated Chronic Kidney Disease where no diagnosis is recorded indicated Diabetes where no diagnosis is recorded medication review for Diabetes with elevated HbA1c indicated Mental Health where no diagnosis is recorded indicated COPD where no diagnosis is recorded indicated Osteoporosis where no diagnosis is recorded Pen CS wishes to acknowledge the ideas and commitment to continually improving primary health care provided by Judy Evans, Manager e-health, RACGP in this project.

The PAT CAT function supports the collection of data from General Practices.  This can then be aggregated by region.  General Practice will receive a login, which enables them to view their data set against their aggregated regional group and all against all of the South Australian General Practice aggregated data.

The Topbar supports the individual consult with applications to identify missing data fields, prompt for MBS items and a Patient health summary overview.  There is also a waiting room application which can prompt Reception staff to complete missing demographic information.

Immediate potential benefits of using these tools in your practice may include:

1. Enhanced quality and safety
2. Efficient management of your patient population
3. Effective identification and monitoring of high risk patients or specific target groups
4. Demonstration of improved patient outcomes
5. Encouragement for pro-active health care and preventive and early intervention activities
6. Assistance in meeting accreditation standards and practice incentive payment (PIP) requirements such as the eHealth PIP
7. Better quality practice data (i.e. completeness of practices clinical data will be improved)
8. Easy identification of previously unseen gaps and opportunities for improvement
9. Ability to monitor and track change over time demonstrating systematic quality improvement initiatives within the practice Data quality tools may be most effective when used within a systematic quality improvement approach, working as an adjunct to the clinical software, from which they create clinical extracts for in-practice analysis.

Data extraction tools create a data extract that represents a snapshot of your clinical data at that point in time.  Practice staff can use the data extract file at any time, without further reference to your clinical software, and it allows you to view and export (into Excel) registers or lists of identified patients.

Training
Country SA PHN staff will provide training that includes data interpretation and opportunities for improved patient outcomes.  This training may be supplied via a number of mechanisms e.g. telephone support, computer-based training or on-site.

Time and resources
To get the best out of the extraction tools we suggest at least one general practitioner, nurse or practice manager, spends some time each week or month reviewing the extracted data. This could become part of your regular practice review process and the content could be presented at staff meetings to take advantage of the availability of such data.

Quarterly data share (optional)
A de-identified data extract to be sent to Country SA PHN on a quarterly basis. This is optional and will be subject to a separate Data Sharing Agreement should you agree to participate. Access to the tools is not conditional on your participation in data sharing.

CAT4 has an optional function to send de-identified encrypted data sets securely to CSAPHN, via practice-initiated FTP upload direct to Country SA PHN’s server, and can only be sent with practice consent each time this function is utilised. No data leaves the practice without the practice’s initiation, knowledge and consent.  No identified patient data leaves the practice with any of the data quality tools provided by CSAPHN.