Journal of Clinical Effectiveness: Volume 1 Issue 1

The National Centre for Clinical Audit: the first stage

Jane E. Smith

This paper outlines the first stage in the development of the National Centre for Clinical Audit (NCCA), which is being established by a partnership of 14 professional…

Implementing clinical guidelines: preparation and opportunism

Debra Humphris, Peter Littlejohns

Clinical guidelines are likely to be key components of any Health Service Trust's framework for improving clinical effectiveness. Initial results from the seven pilot sites of the…

Changing clinical behaviour on a city‐wide scale: lessons from the FACTS project

Paul Hodgkin, Rosalind Eve, Ian Golton, James Munro, Gill Musson

This paper dicusses the experience of a team in Sheffield who have established a 3‐year programme, the FACTS project, which aims to develop a framework for changing clinical…

Interface between research and practice: experiences from the nursing, midwifery, and health visiting development units

Barbara Vaughan

The King's Fund Nursing Development Units were established to improve the quality of patient care through the development of nursing. As a result of the various approaches to…

Promoting user involvement in clinical audit: surveys of audit committees in primary and secondary care

Marcia Kelson, Linda Redpath

The Department of Health has suggested that organizations should develop mechanisms to ensure successful input from patients and carers into clinical audit processes, advocating…

Achieving clinical effectiveness: just another initiative or a real change in working practice?

Gifford Batstone, Mary Edwards

The move to develop evidence‐based health care requires an integrated approach to using information in clinical practice. This paper discusses the issues involved in accessing…

Audit of prescribing safety in a department of medicine for the elderly

James F. Sharp, Duncan R. Forsyth

Inadequately written prescriptions can lead to the wrong drug or dose being given, particularly in the elderly. We undertook a clinical audit to examine prescribing habits in a…

In search of the evidence: informing effective practice

Andrew Booth

Despite the abundant journal literature the challenge for the health care professional is in retrieving clinically relevant information. Critical appraisal is a useful tool in…

Active research dissemination in the West Midlands

Chris Hyde

The need to make better use of research evidence in delivering health care is undeniable. Primary and secondary research of greater quality and relevance will help. However…