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This page illustrates the various types of audit in Occupational
Health, using an integrated example namely Health Surveillance. The manner
of establishing appropriate evidence based standards for this was illustrated
in page 5 of this series of continuing professional
education pages.
By way of illustration, to elaborate
on the respiratory sensitisation example used earlier, one can consider
how quality of practice could be monitored. In order to ascertain
whether a high quality has been achieved in the practice of Occupational
Health, an audit including some or all of the elements in the following
table, can be undertaken (potentially there are others which appear below
as gaps in the table):
| Element to be audited | Method of audit |
| .................................. | .............................. |
| Identification of significant exposures | Occupational hygiene review of sample of completed risk assessments |
| ................................................. | ................................... |
| Health surveillance protocol | Review of sensitivity and specificity of the questionnaire, calibration of diagnostic tools |
| Health assessment of employees | Peer review audit of stratified random sample of records of health surveillance |
| ................................... | ..................................................... |
| Managerial response to results of health surveillance | Review of workplaces with high frequency of adverse effects for evidence of implementation of change |
| Trends in frequency of adverse health effect (e.g of sensitisation) | Review of validated frequency rates against time, classified by category of employees, workplace and task. Audit of sample |
| ............................................ | ............................................. |
| ............................................ | ........................................... |
Other aspects of the quality of occupational health practice can utilise an evidence based approach so as to determine good practice, and subsequently to ensure that the quality can be monitored.
This page is:
http://www.agius.com/hew/audit/12.htm
You may also wish to access the following
URL:
http://www.agius.com/hew/resource/quality.htm
Raymond Agius ©
Copyright 1995-2001
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