Opportunities and Challenges in Establishing a Cohort Study: An Example From Cleft Lip/Palate Research in the United Kingdom.

Background: Cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P) is one of the most common birth conditions in the world, but little is known about its causes. Professional opinion remains divided as to which treatments may be the most beneficial for patients with CL/P, and the factors that contribute to psychological adjustment are poorly understood. The use of different methodological approaches and tools plays a key role in hampering efforts to address discrepancies within the evidence base.

Multiple Individual Audit Outcome Web--a novel tool to evaluate patient outcomes.

Multiple Individual Audit Outcome Web (MIAOW) is a pictorial representation of outcomes, which is used widely in industry, finance, and sports, but not, to the best of our knowledge, in our specialty. It was developed to display multiple audit outcomes for patients in cleft surgery and we show its use in that area, but equally it could be applied to other areas such as orthognathic surgery, and head and neck oncology. We report how it can be used to display surgical outcomes.