How to pull a clinical audit from Best Practice

Best Practice (BP) is the most widely used clinical software in Australian general practice, and it has all the reporting tools you need to run a Measuring Outcomes (MO) audit. The interface is dated and the report names are vague, but once you know which menu to open, the data pull takes 10-15 minutes.

Here's the walkthrough.

What you're looking for

The reports tool sits under Utilities → Search (sometimes labelled "Clinical Auditor" depending on your BP version). It lets you filter the patient list by clinical criteria — diagnosis, medication, recent visit, demographic — and export the resulting list.

For most audits, you build a list of patients matching one criterion, then check what proportion of that list meets the audit benchmark.

Example: anticoagulation in AF

Audit question: Of my patients with confirmed atrial fibrillation, what % are on appropriate anticoagulation?

Step 1: build the AF list.

• Open Utilities → Search → New search
• Add condition: Diagnosis = "Atrial fibrillation" (or use the SNOMED code, which is more reliable since free-text diagnoses vary)
• Add condition: Diagnosis status = Current (excludes paroxysmal-but-resolved)
• Run

You'll get a list of patients. For a typical mid-size practice, expect 30-80 patients.

Step 2: check anticoagulation on each.

For an audit, you don't need to check every patient on the list. Take 20-30 at random:

• Open each patient's record
• Look at current medications
• Note: anticoagulated (apixaban, rivaroxaban, dabigatran, warfarin) or not
• If not anticoagulated, check the record for a CHA₂DS₂-VASc score — patients with score 0-1 may legitimately not need it

Step 3: tally.

Of the 20-30 you reviewed:

• X% are on appropriate anticoagulation
• Y% are not, and don't have a documented reason
• Z% are not, and do have a documented reason (low CHA₂DS₂-VASc, contraindication, patient declined)

The number that matters for the audit is Y — patients who probably should be on anticoagulation but aren't.

Step 4: decide on an action.

• Y < 5%: you're at benchmark. Document the audit, plan a re-audit in 12 months.
• Y = 5-15%: middle ground. Pick one or two patients for follow-up, send a reminder to your AF cohort, plan re-audit in 6 months.
• Y > 15%: clear opportunity for improvement. Consider a structured recall.

Common BP report patterns

Once you're comfortable with the Search tool, the same pattern handles most audits:

• T2DM intensification: filter Diagnosis = T2DM, then check last HbA1c value and current medications
• CKD ACEi/ARB: filter eGFR < 60, check current ACEi/ARB prescription
• Asthma ICS: filter Diagnosis = asthma, check inhaler list for ICS
• Heart failure: filter Diagnosis = HFrEF, check for the four pillars (ACEi/ARB/ARNI, beta-blocker, MRA, SGLT2i)
• Preventive care: filter age + sex, check screening status

Save common searches — BP lets you re-run them with one click, which makes follow-up audits trivial.

Tips that save time

• Use SNOMED, not free-text diagnoses. Free-text "AF", "Atrial fib", "AFib" can each result in different patients matching. SNOMED is the canonical reference.
• Filter Active Patients only. Adds a "Patient is active" condition to exclude patients who've left the practice but haven't been formally deactivated. Cuts your list size significantly.
• Don't try to audit every patient. 20-30 is plenty for a behaviour-pattern audit. The point is your practice, not population epidemiology.
• Save your audit grid as a docx, not in BP. Audit findings shouldn't live in patient records; they belong in your CPD evidence. PracticaCPD's audit templates are docx for exactly this reason.

Translating to a Statement of Completion

For RACGP MO purposes, your audit record needs:

• The question
• The benchmark
• The sample (BP search criteria + date range + sample size)
• The result (% meeting benchmark)
• Your action
• Re-audit date

If you're running the audit inside a PracticaCPD module, the template asks for exactly these fields and the module completion auto-generates a Statement of Completion crediting the MO hours.

See also

• Running a Measuring Outcomes audit in Medical Director
• Clinical audit for time-poor GPs: a 60-minute walkthrough
• What counts as Measuring Outcomes (MO) for RACGP CPD?