Internal audits as a tool to assess the compliance with biosecurity rules in a veterinary faculty.
Authors: Humblet Marie-France, Saegerman Claude
Journal: Frontiers in veterinary science
Summary
# Editorial Summary Humblet & Saegerman (2023) have developed a systematic internal audit tool designed to monitor and enforce biosecurity compliance across veterinary teaching facilities—encompassing clinical areas, laboratories, dissection rooms, and educational livestock units. Rather than relying on subjective assessment, the authors created sector-specific Excel-based checklists organised by activity (for instance, the equine clinic checklist distinguished between class 1–2 non-infectious hospitalisation, class 3 suspected infectious disease cases, and consultation areas), with each item scored on a standardised 0–4 scale where 0 represented full compliance and higher scores indicated deficiencies. A single trained observer conducted all audits to eliminate variability, evaluating six key categories: personal protective equipment and dress, animal-related protocols, infrastructure standards, waste management, equipment handling, and behavioural compliance. The methodology successfully identified specific areas requiring improvement and enabled prioritisation of corrective actions, with the authors recommending that audit frequency be risk-stratified according to the transmission potential of each activity or facility zone. For equine professionals operating within teaching or clinical institutions, this framework offers a practical, standardised approach to auditing biosecurity procedures and targeting staff education—particularly valuable given that consistent compliance is only achievable through regular, structured monitoring rather than ad-hoc oversight.
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Practical Takeaways
- •Implement a documented, sector-specific biosecurity checklist system to identify which protocols are actually being followed and which need reinforcement or retraining.
- •Use audit findings to prioritize targeted awareness and corrective actions rather than generic biosecurity education for all staff.
- •Establish a risk-based audit schedule: high-transmission-risk areas (isolation units, infectious disease wards) need more frequent checks than routine hospitalization or consultation areas.
Key Findings
- •A standardized checklist-based audit tool was developed to assess biosecurity compliance across multiple veterinary facility sectors including equine, pig, and teaching areas.
- •The audit methodology uses 0-3/0-4 scoring scales for individual items with median and average scores calculated by category and activity to identify compliance gaps.
- •Regular internal auditing frequency should be risk-stratified, with higher-risk activities (Class 3-4 infectious disease areas) requiring more frequent monitoring than lower-risk areas.