Reynolds Releases Article on Audit, Feedback Strategies

Reynolds Releases Article on Audit, Feedback Strategies

staci reynoldsStaci Reynolds, assistant professor, has released her "Using audit and feedback to improve compliance with evidence-based practices" article in the American Nurse.

Excerpt

Takeaways

  • Audit and feedback strategies are routinely implemented in clinical practice as a way to monitor compliance with various practices; however, they’re not always completed effectively.
  • This article highlights key strategies to ensure audit and feedback success.

Audits are routinely done in clinical practice to monitor compliance with various practices, such as infection prevention bundles or fall and pressure injury prevention. Audit and feedback comprise a beneficial strategy for implementing and sustaining practice changes; however, the feedback component frequently gets lost in the process. Audits become onerous tasks to check off the to-do list, with data entered into a “black hole” never to be seen again, rendering audits unhelpful in improving practice.

In 2012, Ivers and colleagues conducted a systematic review looking at how effective audit and feedback strategies improve compliance with evidence-based practices. They found that audit and feedback may be most effective when:

  • baseline data show that health professionals aren’t performing well to begin with
  • the individuals completing audit and feedback are a peer or supervisor (known to the clinicians)
  • audit and feedback data are provided more than once
  • feedback is provided verbally and in writing
  • feedback includes clear targets and an action plan.

Based on that information, and my personal experience, this article describes best practices for using audit and feedback to provide meaningful information to clinicians.

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