Occurrence screening in critical care.

Occurrence screening is a system of quality assurance in which patient care is reviewed, both concurrently and retrospectively, against a set of general outcome screening criteria. It is a method for monitoring the quality of clinical practice more comprehensively that has been possible in the past. If implemented appropriately, occurrence screening eliminates the random efforts and audits of past quality assurance efforts with a systematic and comprehensive monitoring process aimed at identifying questionable quality of care practices. This article discusses the concept of occurrence screening as a useful tool in assessing quality of care in a special care unit.