Peer Review Scorecard Shows Room for Improvement
Ninety-five medical staff leaders, quality assurance and risk managers from leading hospitals across the U.S. recently completed AllMed’s Peer Review Scorecard, and the results indicate a strong need for improving hospital peer review.
The Peer Review Scorecard is a self-assessment tool and survey that covers four broad areas that influence hospital peer review: culture, operations, practitioner evaluations and Joint Commission standards.
The survey results highlight areas for improvement in the way hospitals conduct peer review. On the positive side, the survey indicates that medical staff and administrative leadership are visibly committed to continuous quality improvement, by-laws provide clear direction on peer review and hospitals are putting well-defined peer review processes into place. However, there are still many areas for improvement.
Highlights
When questioned about culture, just 46.5 percent of the scorecard respondents said their practitioners know how they contribute to the quality of patient care. Slightly over 38 percent of them said that physicians view peer review as fair and objective. Only 26 percent agreed that their peer review process was proactive rather than reactive.
With regard to peer review operations, respondents were asked whether peer reviews were completed within 30 days after initiation and over 82 percent said they were not.
Physician evaluations troubling
The area needing the most improvement was practitioner evaluations. Sixty-nine percent indicate their medical staff falls short in investigating all performance deviations and taking action. Two-thirds believed their peer review process had inconsistently applied triggers for evaluations. Fifty-five percent noted that their hospitals had no clearly defined triggers to indicate when a practitioner should have a focused review. In addition, more than 55 percent said their organization had no valid and reliable performance data maintained on all practitioners.
What it means
These results show that one year after the Joint Commission redefined and broadened the role of peer review, hospitals are still struggling with understanding how this change impacts their patient safety and continuous quality improvement programs. The AllMed scorecard is a snapshot of how well they are managing this paradigm shift. What the scorecard is showing is that hospitals still have a long way to go.
Where to find the scorecard
AllMed developed the Peer Review Scorecard to help hospital medical staff, quality professionals and peer reviewers perform a self-assessment of their peer review environment and identify areas for improvement. By rating each question between one (strongly disagree) and five (strongly agree), hospital staff can quickly assess their organization’s peer review health and pinpoint areas needing attention.
Copies of the Peer Review Scorecard are available for downloading at: http://www.allmedmd.com/resources/downloads/peerreview_scorecard.htm. A webinar entitled “Get Your Hospital Peer Review Act Together” provides insights on how to address issues uncovered in the scorecard and can be viewed at http://www.allmedmd.com/resources/downloads/webinar3_download.html. Hospitals looking for help improving their peer review environment, or wanting to conduct external peer reviews, can contact AllMed by calling 1-888-289-6015 or visit the Website at http://www.allmedmd.com/services/hospitalpeerreview.htm for more information.
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