Medical Director (MD) is the other widely-used Australian GP clinical software, and like Best Practice it has the reporting tools you need to run a Measuring Outcomes (MO) audit. The naming and menu structure differs from BP — and varies by MD version (MD3 vs MD Helix vs HealthData) — but the workflow shape is the same.

Here's the walkthrough.

Where the reporting tool lives

In MD3 and MD Helix the audit/query tool sits under:

Tools → Audit & Search (older MD3), or
Reports → Patient query (newer MD Helix), or
Practice Reports if your practice uses HealthData add-ons

The interface lets you build a query against the patient database: filter by diagnosis, medication, recent activity, demographic. If your practice has Pen CS / Topbar or Cubiko, those tools wrap MD's data with friendlier query builders and pre-built reports — use those if available.

Example: T2DM intensification audit

Audit question: Of my patients with T2DM and HbA1c ≥ 7%, what proportion have been intensified to dual therapy or escalated within 6 months?

Step 1: build the diabetes cohort.

Open Audit & Search → New query
Add condition: Active diagnosis includes "Diabetes Mellitus Type 2" (use the coded option, not free-text)
Add condition: HbA1c result ≥ 7.0% in last 12 months
Run

You'll get a list of patients. Expect ~30-80 in a mid-size general practice depending on your patient demographic.

Step 2: check intensification on each.

Take 20-25 at random from the list. For each:

Open the patient
Look at the prescriptions timeline (Past Prescriptions tab)
Check whether a new agent was added or an existing dose was uptitrated within 6 months of the HbA1c result
Note: intensified vs not intensified vs has documented reason (frailty, life expectancy, hypoglycaemia history)

Step 3: tally.

X% intensified appropriately
Y% not intensified, no documented reason
Z% not intensified, with documented reason

Y is the number that matters.

Step 4: decide on action.

The same three-tier response as any audit:

Y < 10%: at benchmark, note the audit, re-audit in 12 months
Y = 10-25%: middle ground; pick one or two patients to follow up, consider a practice-wide reminder
Y > 25%: clear opportunity; structured recall of the at-risk subset, re-audit in 6 months

MD's quirks worth knowing

Inactive patients aren't always filtered out. Add an "Active patient" or "Visited in last 24 months" condition to exclude patients who've left.
Free-text diagnoses break queries. "DM2", "Type II diabetes", "T2DM" can all sit in the same record. Coded diagnoses (using MIMS or ICD-10 picker) are far more reliable. Educate your practice on coded entry if this hurts your audits.
Pen CS / Topbar gives you a head start. If your practice has Pen CS, run their pre-built clinical audit reports rather than hand-building queries. They've already solved the "find my AF patients" problem.
MD Helix vs MD3. The reports tool was rewritten in Helix; older guides assuming MD3 may name menus that no longer exist. If a guide doesn't match your screen, you're probably on Helix and need to look under Reports → Patient Query.

Translating to MO hours

For RACGP MO purposes, your audit record needs:

The question and benchmark
The query criteria (MD search filters + date range)
The sample size and result
Your action
Re-audit date

PracticaCPD's audit templates ask for exactly these fields. Drop your MD output into the docx, complete the action and re-audit fields, upload alongside your reflection, and the module completion auto-credits the MO hours.

Running a Measuring Outcomes audit in Medical Director

Where the reporting tool lives

Example: T2DM intensification audit

MD's quirks worth knowing

Translating to MO hours

See also