About the audit
The BreastSurgANZ Quality Audit (BQA) aims to improve the
quality of care by surgeons for patients with early and locally
advanced breast cancer in Australia and New Zealand.
Participants can self-assess their clinical performance against
set Key Performance
Indicators.
Research into
breast cancer treatment and outcomes using de-identified audit data
also forms an important part of the audit's value.
Breast Surgeons of Australia and New Zealand (BreastSurgANZ), directors of the audit, require
Full members to submit data on all cases of early and
locally advanced breast cancer.
The BQA
Subcommittee is responsible for providing direction, oversight
and clinical advice to the operation of the audit.
What's new
In November 2017, new High Quality Performance Indicators (HQPIs) were
added to the BQA system. This work was funded by the Foundation for Breast
Cancer Care.
To allow data to be collected for the HQPIs, a number of other
changes have also been made to the audit system.
Learn more about the changes implemented in BQA Version 4.3.
Background
This audit was formerly directed by the Breast Surgery Section
of the College as the National Breast Cancer Audit. It was
originally initiated as a pilot study in 1998 and has been running
continuously since then. The College now manages the audit on
behalf of BreastSurgANZ, who took over the audit's direction in
late 2010.
The database currently contains over 200,000 episodes of breast
cancer, with over 300 surgeons contributing data each year from
across Australian and New Zealand.
Who can participate
Full members of BreastSurgANZ are automatically allocated an
audit account for collecting and submitting data.
Non-member access to the Online Portal for their own self-audit
purposes is also available for a fee; however, non-members are not
considered participants of the audit nor are they provided with the
other benefits and services of participation (beyond Help Desk
support).
Benefits of participating
Use the BQA
Online Portal to:
- collect and store patient data
- produce summaries of individual breast cancer cases
- assess practice against key performance indicators
- export cases to Microsoft Excel for further analyses
Other benefits include:
Quality Assurance Activities
Aspects of the functions within
the audit have been declared in Australia as Quality Assurance
Activities under the Health Insurance Act 1973 (Cth) (overview of the Commonwealth Qualified Privilege
Scheme, Australian Government);
and in New Zealand as Protected Quality Assurance Activities under
the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 (overview of Quality Assurance Activities under the
Act, New Zealand Government).
As a result of these
declarations, the data that becomes available as a result of the
prescribed activity cannot be disclosed (in reports or
publications) outside of that activity in a manner that identifies
a person. The confidentiality of the information received is
protected accordingly and high-level data security procedures are
maintained.
For details on the activities
protected, please refer to:
Australia - Declaration of Quality Assurance Activity for
BreastSurgANZ Quality Audit and Outlier Process
New Zealand - Health Practitioners (Protected Quality Assurance
Activity - BreastSurgANZ Quality Audit) Notice
New Zealand Approved Quality Assurance Activity Status
Contact us
Contact the helpdesk at:
Email: breast.audit@surgeons.org
Telephone: +61 8 8219 0918
Fax: +61 8 8219 0999