ICU audit yet to roll-out to 13 hospitals

A spokesperson for the National Office of Clinical Audit (NOCA) said the ICU audit is live in nine hospitals, which encompasses 12 individual units, with the first site having gone live in January 2015. The ICU audit was established to measure the quality of care in ICUs by benchmarking outcomes to the internationally-recognised standards of the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) in the UK. 

The specific objectives include using the data to drive improvements; measuring activity to inform configuration in critical care; providing data to support the Hospital In-Patient Enquiry (HIPE) scheme and Activity-Based Funding (ABF); audit of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs); and capturing data on potential organ donors and organ donation to support HSE Organ Donation and Transplant Ireland (ODTI) to minimise missed opportunities.

ODTI’s most recent annual report, for 2016, stated that “considerable work” needed to be completed to enhance rates of organ donation and transplantation, the first of which was deployment of an audit system tracking potential donation episodes throughout the health service.

Asked if ODTI had information on how well ICU audits are operating and any statistics on potential missed donation opportunities in these units, a HSE spokesperson said the audit system sits under the auspices of NOCA, “with whom ODTI engage in relation to audit”.

Live data is being collected by Beaumont Hospital; Mater Hospital; Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda; Midlands Regional Hospital, Mullingar; St James’s Hospital; Tallaght Hospital; University Hospital Galway; University Hospital Limerick; and University Hospital Waterford. Each of the live sites have access to quarterly reports to review their own data and NOCA intends publishing an interim National ICU Audit Report in early 2019. NOCA said there are dedicated ICU audit nurses in place at all live sites.

“The roll-out of the ICU audit is a complex project that requires the development and implementation of multiple system interfaces, eg, patient administration system and/or the clinical information system, combined with extensive training and support for each site as they go live,” added NOCA’s spokesperson.