Clinical audit for time-poor GPs: a 60-minute walkthrough

Clinical audit is the RACGP CPD category most GPs put off the longest. It feels like a project — a chunk of time on a Saturday, a methodology you half-remember from registrar training, awkward spreadsheets. But done right, a clinical audit can take 60 minutes of your time and bank 5 hours of Measuring Outcomes credit.

Here's the lean version.

Pick the right topic

The best audit topics share three properties:

1. You can answer the question with data your EMR already produces. Best Practice and Medical Director both let you run pre-built reports. If your audit needs a custom export or a SQL query, pick a different topic.
2. There's a concrete benchmark. "Are 80% of my T2DM patients on metformin first-line?" beats "Am I managing diabetes well?" Vague questions produce vague audits.
3. The result might change what you do. If the audit confirms exactly what you'd predict, you've wasted an hour. Pick a topic where you're genuinely unsure of your baseline.

Good examples for Australian general practice:

• Diabetes: % of T2DM patients with HbA1c ≥ 7% on an appropriate intensification
• AF: % of patients with confirmed AF on appropriate anticoagulation per CHA₂DS₂-VASc
• Asthma: % of asthma patients on ICS-containing therapy (GINA 2025 reclassified SABA-only as inappropriate)
• Heart failure: % of HFrEF patients on the four pillars (ACEi/ARB/ARNI, beta-blocker, MRA, SGLT2i)
• CKD: % of CKD3+ patients with appropriate ACEi/ARB use and SGLT2i where eligible

The 60-minute structure

Minutes 0-5: pick the topic. Decide which slice of patients you want to look at and what benchmark you're comparing against.

Minutes 5-20: pull the data. Open your EMR's reporting tool. Most of these can be done with built-in reports:

• BP: Reports → Clinical → Chronic disease → Diabetes (or similar — naming varies)
• MD: equivalent dashboard with a chronic-disease filter

If you can't find a pre-built report, ask another GP in your practice — someone's almost certainly done it before. If still stuck, your practice manager or PHN can help — it's a normal request.

Minutes 20-40: count and benchmark. Take 20-30 patients from the report (no need to do all of them — a representative sample is fine). For each, mark against your benchmark. Tally up.

Minutes 40-50: decide on an action. Three honest possibilities:

1. You're exceeding the benchmark. Note what you do differently. Plan to keep doing it.
2. You're at the benchmark. Note this. No specific action needed.
3. You're below the benchmark. Pick one concrete change. Examples: "Set a Best Practice reminder for ACEi/ARB review on every CKD3 patient." "Add a SmartSet for HFrEF four-pillar pre-fill." "Discuss at next practice meeting."

The action matters more than the result. The whole point of audit is closing the loop between observation and practice change.

Minutes 50-60: write it up. A short paragraph on what you audited, what you found, and what you'll do. This is the artifact RACGP wants to see at audit. Three or four sentences is fine.

What the RACGP wants in your record

For Measuring Outcomes to count, your record should include:

• The clinical question and the benchmark
• How you sampled (the report name and date range)
• The result (a percentage, or a count)
• Your interpretation
• The action you're committing to
• A date to follow up (re-audit in 6-12 months)

PracticaCPD modules include audit templates designed exactly to this shape — a one-page docx grid you complete offline against your EMR data, then upload alongside your reflection.

Things that make audits drag

A few patterns turn 60 minutes into a Saturday:

• Over-scoping. "I'll audit my entire diabetes cohort." No — pick 20 patients. The sample isn't the point; the action is.
• Chasing perfect data. Some patients won't have an HbA1c on file. Note them and move on. The audit isn't about complete data; it's about your practice pattern.
• Doing the audit without deciding the action. Halfway through, you realise you're not sure what success looks like. Pick the action first, audit second.

How PracticaCPD streamlines this

Every Pro module includes the three-step audit pattern: download a topic-specific audit template (docx), run it against your EMR offline, upload the completed grid as evidence, and write a structured reflection. The module completion auto-logs your MO hours under the right category in PracticaCPD and on the Statement of Completion.

If you've never run an audit before, doing one inside a module is the gentlest entry point — the topic is picked, the benchmark is named, the template is built. You're left with the part only you can do: looking at your own patients.

See also

• The RACGP 2026 CPD framework, explained — where MO fits in the framework
• What counts as Reviewing Performance (RP) for RACGP CPD? — the companion category