[Clinical safety audits for primary care centers. A pilot study].

Objective: To identify organizational processes, violations of rules, or professional performances that pose clinical levels of insecurity.

Design: Descriptive cross-sectional survey with customized externally-behavioral verification and comparison of sources, conducted from June 2008 to February 2010.

Setting: Thirteen of the 53 primary care teams (PCT) of the Catalonian Health Institute (ICS Costa de Ponent, Barcelona).

Family physicians' ability to detect a physical sign (hepatomegaly) from an unannounced standardized patient (incognito SP).

Background: Little is known about the quality of the physical examination and its effectiveness in daily practice.

Objective: To determine if family physicians (FPs) were able to detect an important physical sign (hepatomegaly) and to relate this result with other measures of quality.

Methods: 57 of 104 invited FPs from the National Health Service of the Southern Barcelona Area agreed to schedule an unannounced Standardized Patient (SP) randomly into their daily practice.