The Audit Tool
Based on national guidelines
The Audit Tool provides health professionals with free easy-to-use online audits. It has been developed to assist hospitals with their clinical transfusion and patient blood management audit activities.
Each audit is based on national standards and/or guidelines including the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards and the Patient Blood Management Guidelines.
View the information guideIs Human Research Ethic Committee approval required?
Always refer to your health service's appropriate policy to determine what level of oversight is required.
Activity undertaken using this tool should involve no more than negligible to low risk for your organisation (see chapter 2 of the National Statement). This risk assessment is based on the types of audits and the collection of only non-identifiable patient and organisational data.
The Ethical Considerations in Quality Assurance and Evaluation Activities: National Health and Medical Research Council March 2014 suggest a number of considerations to assist in determining the level of oversight for quality activities and triggers that may indicate when ethical review is required for a quality activity.
The following considerations are applicable to the Audit Tool for consideration of ethical review:
- Secondary use of data – using data or analysis from QA or evaluation activities for another purpose.
- Comparison of cohorts
For further detailed information on these considerations and how they may impact the decision for an ethical review, please refer to the information guide.
References
- National Health and Medical Research Council, Ethical Considerations in Quality Assurance and Evaluation Activities. Australia 2014
- National Health and Medical Research Council, National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. Australia 2007 (updated 2015).