It includes the assurance of safe and high quality care and treatment through local audit (identified patient safety), the management of untoward or adverse incidents.
Such considerations may come under individual audit mechanisms, however healthcare systems may seek wider access for the purposes of their bureaucracy.
Direct Care is contrasted with Secondary Uses, which are all other uses of medical records, usually as bulk personal datasets, some of which have been the source of international controversy.
Examples of secondary uses include health care analytics, risk stratification, medical research, and pharmaceutical marketing.
[3] In the second report for the Department of Health, Fiona Caldicott wrote that: The use of personal confidential data for local clinical audit is permissible within an organisation with the participation of a health and social care professional with a legitimate relationship to the patient through implied consent.