| dc.description.abstract | In health organizations, the effective management of organizational processes depends on continuous monitoring and evaluation. The internal audit practice is the evaluation, monitoring and control of the work processes. This practice can determine the actions adopted are working or needs adjustments. Currently, several areas have internal audits applied in health establishments, and each one of them may have their proper way and dynamic of operation. Furthermore, the integration between these audits is not commonly observed in these scenarios. Based on the aforementioned, this study aims to analyze how the practices of internal audits performed in a university hospital are configured, with a view to proposing strategies for integrating these services. The research method was the case study with the qualitative approach. Research participants are internal audit workers in the Internal Quality Audit, the Medical Records Audit, the Accounts Audit, the Infection Control Audit, and the Pharmacy Audit. The data collected by semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The data were analyzed by Content Analysis following the Thematic Analysis model to identify common themes and establish highlighted practices. The results grouped into three thematic categories: Dynamics of audits: general aspects, Specificity of the audits performed in the hospital: audited requirements and ways of monitoring, and (Non) Integration of internal audits: challenges and possibilities. The results showed the need for integration of the various audits carried out at the institution because it identified relevant aspects of each audit still not well-known for the whole service. Also, the existence of duplicate assessments reinforces the possibility of optimizing their work processes. According to these results, it developed a proposal to improve the integration of these audits on five pillars: sharing consolidated periodic reports, definition and monitoring strategic auditing indicators, holding the periodic audits group meetings for continuous alignment, participation of the leaders in the audit operations, and giving awards as motivational mechanism to encourage areas that achieve good results in the audits performed. | |
