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Aim  To determine whether clinical/care pathway audit tools can identify the characteristics of well‐organized care processes.

Background  Although pathways are used worldwide, confusion exists about the concept and impact.

Evaluation  Search of OVID‐Medline, Cinahl, British Nursing Index; manual search of the Journal of Integrated Care Pathways; contact with Smartgroup on Clinical Pathways and board members of the European Pathway Association and Google^® search.

Key issues  We selected seven of 15 clinical pathway audit tools for this review. Through content analysis, we identified 17 characteristics and grouped them using the realistic evaluation paradigm. The Integrated Care Pathway Appraisal Tool is the most appropriate audit tool to assess clinical pathway documents.

Conclusions  It is astonishing that so little research on clinical pathway audit tools has been underwent, given the …