National breast surgery audit

Background: Surgical audit is routinely conducted throughout the surgical c ommunity in order to examine practice in a peer-review environment. A natio nal audit for breast cancer surgery has been implemented in Australia and N ew Zealand. It aims to standardize the way in which surgical activities are recorded. The present paper describes the development and implementation o f the audit project. Methods: An audit kit including instruction manual, data dictionary and cho ice of two data collection instruments (paper or database) were distributed among participants. Surgeons record their patients prospectively, submit d ata to central office and provide feedback. Results: Information on 3000 breast cancer patients has been collected with in the first 6 months. Conclusion: The project has been successfully implemented and is continuing to develop. Many surgeons have incorporated the patient record forms in th eir routine case management activities. Comments and other submissions have been reviewed and changes incorporated into the second and subsequent rele ases of the kit.