Audit definition: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, (NICE), published “The Principles for Best Practice in Clinical Audit in 2002, which defined clinical audit as, “a quality improvement process that seeks to improve patient care and outcomes through a systematic review against explicit criteria and the implementation of change. Aspects of the structure, processes and outcomes of care are selected and systematically evaluated against explicit criteria.
Where indicated, changes are implemented at an individual, team or service level and further monitoring is used to confirm improvement to healthcare delivery.”
A brief overview of the context of the audit and why this audit is important. The reader should be clear why you are doing this audit and be signposted to any appropriate literature. (300 words excluding the definition above)
1) What are opioids? What’s the general mechanism of action of opioids?
– Are group of pain-relieving drugs that work by interacting with opioid receptors in your cells
– Example of opioids: oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, and methadone.
2) What are the use & benefits of opioids? Opioids are very good analgesics for acute pain and pain at the end of life but there is little evidence that they are helpful for long-term pain.
3) Disadvantages of opioids/ side effects? nausea, vomiting, constipation, pruritus, dizziness, dry mouth and sedation. Side effects are extremely common with opioid therapy.
4) Explain the importance of opioid auditing?
-opioid has been prescribed more than double in the period 1998 to 2018. This has been referred to as an opioid epidemic in the UK. Audits are used to ensure responsible opioid prescribing by healthcare practitioners
– It is important to provide safe, effective and efficient care to patients.
For this audit, 1202 patients were reviewed in this clinical audit. The patients were from a musculoskeletal ward in a hospital.
Please can you answer the questions presented above for the introduction section
