Supporting practice-based audit: a price to be paid for collecting data

Background. There has been considerable investment by health authorities in the funding of support staff whose job is to collect data for audit purpos es. It is important to understand what costs are involved in such a data co llection exercise. The cost advantages of using existing practice staff or externally funded staff are not known. Aim, To assess the cost of transposing data on workload to computer softwar e for audit purposes and retrieving data on five chronic diseases from case records. Method. Four audit support staff monitored the time taken to collect specif ic data as part of a broad audit programme in 12 training practices within one health board area in the West of Scotland in 1997. The time taken was u sed to estimate comparative costs for using a receptionist or practice nurs e for carrying out a similar exercise. Results, Average costs for collecting data per 1000 patients for waiting ti me, appointments, recall, and telephone audits were pound 5.24 for receptio n staff pound 5.64 for audit support staff, and pound 9.68 for a practice n urse. The average cost for collecting data per patient with diabetes, asthm a, epilepsy, hypertension, or rheumatoid arthritis was pound 1.48 for recep tion staff, pound 1.60 for audit support staff, and pound 2.74 for a practi ce nurse, Conclusions. The cost of collecting data varies considerably depending on w hich staff are chosen for the purpose. Practices should consider carefully how best to collect data for audit in terms of cost.