Clinical Audit Implementation in Europe - a practical and multidisciplinary approach

ongoing

CLAUD-IT addresses the need to improve clinical audit practice in EU Member States, which to date remains variable despite the respective BSSD requirement. CLAUD-IT aims to foster implementation of clinical audit in radiology and nuclear medicine and thus to improve quality and safety for Europe’s patients. It directly builds on the EU-funded projects QuADRANT and EU-JUST-CT, as well as the recent SAMIRA statement on clinical audit, which provide recommendations for clinical audit adoption and CT justification. Based on a needs assessment and consideration of recent initiatives and infrastructure, CLAUD-IT will for the first time develop clinical audit guidance for nuclear medicine and expand existing guidance for radiology, both based on the European Society of Radiology’s ESPERANTO guide to clinical audit. The 36-month project will connect hospitals, national professional societies and authorities of 9 countries, and is fully supported by the relevant European scientific societies. Practical implementation will be performed in a staged approach following the CLAUD-IT methodology and “clinical audit cookbook” training material. In a first step, clinical audits will be conducted in 11 core hospitals in 9 EU Member States by local multidisciplinary teams under external guidance. In a second step, audits will be rolled-out in additional 3-6 institutions in each of the 9 countries, considering lessons learned in the 1st round. This way over 250 professionals will be trained in clinical audit, following the train-the-trainer concept to build further capacity and to ensure trained auditors act as multipliers. All material developed and audit results will be made freely accessible in a sustainable online repository allowing a “one-stop-shop”-approach to lower entry barrier for clinical audit adoption and involvement of all relevant stakeholders will inspire future campaigns in all Member States catalysing a transformative shift in healthcare practices across Europe.