Is audit relevant to the medical wards of a teaching hospital.

The initial purpose of an experimental program of close personalized supervision of ward patients by attending physicians in addition to house staff in a teaching hospital was to determine whether such personalized care would raise the quality of care and lower the cost and length of stay. By subjective measurements, an improvement in the quality of care was perceived. However, neither length of stay nor hospital charges were reduced when compared to a control population. Moreover, the data suggest that auditing the length of stay and hospital charges does not necessarily measure the quality of medical care.