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Information for Quality improvement Bulletin Bulletin no 19: National Audits The Quality Improvement programme at ISD Scotland has produced an e-mail bulletin with all the work that ISD is doing to support quality improvement in healthcare in NHS Scotland. Click here to see the current and previous bulletins If you would like to receive our email bulletin please email us This website replaces the Clinical Indicators Support Team (CIST) website. The CIST team no longer exists. The work of the CIST team is now undertaken as part of the Quality Improvement Programme within the Information Services Division (ISD). Surgical Profiles 10th November 2009 : Surgical profiles is a project involving NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS), the Information Services Division (ISD) and all NHS Boards in Scotland. The surgical profiles project aims to contribute to the development of a culture whereby individuals and organisations providing clinical services routinely use data to stimulate reflective practice and are also accountable for using such information to drive improvements in patient care. The profile presents a suite of clinical indicators at NHS Board and hospital level. NHS QIS have produced a national summary report of the second cycle of the profile. This report and each Boards profile from the second cycle can be found here Statistical Process Control SPC : Collecting data from healthcare processes is what we routinely do in the NHS. The analysis of these data, which are usually continuous or discrete, can provide great insight into the behaviour of these processes. Statistical Process Control (SPC) techniques, when applied to measurement data, can be used as a basis for quality improvement in healthcare processes in much the same way as they have been effectively applied to manufacturing processes to bring about improvement. Two of the simplest SPC techniques to implement are the run chart and the control chart. The purpose of these techniques is to identify when the process is displaying strange or unusual behaviour. Formally, the purpose of the run chart and the control chart is to distinguish between two sorts of variation that a process can exhibit, namely common cause variation and special cause variation. Please click here to go to the SPC Excel Tool and SPC Tutorial Guide. Archive Web Indicators Since 2003, an increasing number of previously published indicators have been updated on the internet. The 'web indicators' were updated every six months until 28th July 2009 Figures are available at NHS Board and hospital level for years ending 30th June 1999 to 31st 30th June 2008. Health Indicators Reports In Europe, Scotland has led the way in the production and public release of clinical indicators. From 1993 - 2007 a report was produced annually, presenting data on a range of health and healthcare issues. The main purpose of producing these indicators was to supply information that local NHS clinicians and managers could use to improve the quality of patient care. Previous CIST website Link to the Clinical Indicators Support Team website