Provision of the Western Australian Audit of Surgical Mortality

The Department of Health requires the provision of the Western Australian Audit of Surgical Mortality (WAASM). Surgical audit is defined as ?a regular documented critical analysis of the outcomes of surgical care, which is reviewed by peers and which is used to further inform surgical practice? (National Centre for Clinical Audit, UK). A surgical audit program requires a range of skills, procedures and/or processes to be provided including: clinical assessment and review of patient records;consultation with relevant specialist disciplines;technical ability of collating data;establishment of surgical standard benchmarks through analysis;measurement of compliance with these standards and against the benchmarks; andprovision of reporting and feedback mechanisms to support clinical and organisational practice change. The aim of the required surgical mortality audit is to ensure the optimum quality of peri- and post-operative health care by reviewing deaths of patients under the care of surgeons. The success of the WAASM is driven by high levels of clinician engagement, in terms of both submitting cases for audit, and performing peer review of other surgeons? cases.