The Challenge:  Meeting Joint Commission Standards for Ongoing Physician Evaluations

The Joint Commission’s 2008 redefinition of physician evaluations changes the way hospitals must assess their doctors’ performance and implicitly expands the role of peer review.  As part of this expanded role, the Joint Commission has asked hospitals to conduct continuing and ongoing reviews of all of its physicians.

In response, JFK Medical Center has designed its own process to reduce conflict of interest issues, improve its quality of care, increase physician accountability, make evaluations more transparent and emphasize the continuing educational aspects of all evaluations.

The Solution:  Systematic External Peer Review

“We wanted to be proactive about meeting the Joint Commission’s new standards for ongoing peer review,” said Linda Anderson, the director of quality at JFK Medical Center. She developed an ongoing review process supported by her CEO. “Because cost can be a factor in deciding to perform external peer review, it takes a proactive hospital CEO to get a program like this going,” she said.

The Outcome:  Improved Practitioner Performance & Quality of Care

AllMed’s team of board-certified, actively practicing specialists evaluate each case for practice-specific process and charting, as well as other quality issues, including whether a complication, re-admission or sentinel event occurred in the case. For cases flagged for a focused review, AllMed provides an in-depth hospital peer review report.