PRIMIS CHART e-audit tool launched

An e-audit tool to allow GP practices to assess the quality of their data as part of the IM&T directed enhanced service has been launched by NHS Connecting for Health (CfH).

GP practices are being encouraged to download the CHART e-audit tool to benchmark themselves against others and use the results to help focus on areas for improvement as they prepare to submit their application for the IM&T DES data accreditation element.

The CHART e-audit tool has been developed by the primary care data quality service Primis+ on behalf of CfH and is available free of charge to GP practices.

There are four elements in the IM&T DES covering agreement of a practice plan for participation in the National Programme for IT, achieving data accreditation in preparation for the upload of summary records to the spine, taking part in the electronic prescription service and migration to a CfH accredited server. Practices must indicate they wish to take part by February 1, 2007.

The CHART e-audit tool is an Excel-based spreadsheet containing 130 different queries in 16 sets of data to assess the accuracy level of clinical coding and recording within each practice. By submitting their results to CHART Online, practices and their assessors will be able to compare their data with other practices in the locality or others with similar patient demographics.

Dr Gillian Braunold, CfH’s national joint GP clinical lead, who chairs the Data Accreditation Board and led the project said: "By using the e-audit tool practices will be able to ensure their coded data is meaningful in any clinical environment, which is an essential requirement of the new NHS Care Records Service."

CfH said the e-audit tool was developed in collaboration with a number of professional organisations, including the British Medical Association’s General Practitioner Committee (GPC), the Royal College of General Practitioners and NHS Employers, to ensure the queries to support the accreditation standard are appropriate.

Dr Richard Vautrey, a GPC negotiator, said: "Through working together, we believe that we now have a toolkit that will prove useful for all practices that want to improve their data quality. Use of the toolkit will not only help practices achieve the standards set in the IM&T DES, but will help to ensure better quality electronic records that lead to better patient care."

The e-audit tool was piloted by 48 GP practices which submitted anonymised practice data over the web to PRIMIS+ using CHART Online.

CfH said it has also developed an Information Governance toolkit for GP practices. which will be shortly available to practices at https://www.igt.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk.

*The e-audit tool was due to be uploaded onto the PRMIS+ website by the end of the day on Tuesday december 12.