Practical surgical audit: a morbidity profile.

A prospective study of 248 patients admitted consecutively under the care of a single surgeon was performed and data on a variety of patient details were collected daily during the period of their hospitalization. Analysis of the data identified four quantifiable indices of morbidity, namely duration of hospitalization, duration of intravenous infusion, analgesic requirement and antibiotic administration, which can be combined arithmetically and used to produce a morbidity profile. The use of such a profile may allow comparisons to be made between different units if applied to specific conditions and permit a more accurate assessment of overall patient morbidity than can be presently done using mortality rates.