ABSTRACT
Clinical audit is the systematic analysis of the quality of patient care with the aim of identifying possible improvements. The use of autopsy data in clinical audit is obvious in the consideration of cases in which the outcome has been fatal; autopsy findings can be compared with the clinical diagnosis and the certified cause of death. Effective audit demands a high autopsy rate and high standards of autopsy performance and reporting, but the autopsy rate continues to fall. The causes of most deaths in most countries are certified without confirmation by autopsy. Concomitant with auditing clinical diagnosis by autopsy is the opportunity to assess the effects of treatment. Autopsies provide radiologists and pathologists unrivalled opportunities to correlate the morbid images obtained during life with the corresponding morbid anatomy revealed after death. The ‘audit loop’ feeds information from autopsies back into clinical practice with the aim of effecting improvements.
