PeerPoints for Hospitals
May 2008
Welcome to the latest edition of PeerPoints, focused on helping hospital medical staff and quality managers improve peer review performance.
If you have comments or suggestions for PeerPoints, please let us know. We always welcome your comments on our newsletter. Please don’t hesitate to contact us instantly via e-mail or by calling 1-888-289-6015.
In this issue:
-
Managing Conflict of Interest in Peer Review
-
Peer Review Scorecard Shows Room for Improvement
-
Best Practice: External Peer Review Improves Quality Management for Rural Hospital
- Many rural hospitals struggle with meeting Joint Commission standards on Focused and Ongoing Professional Practice Evaluation. It’s particularly hard to manage peer review conflict of interest in hospitals with a limited number of specialists. Find out how a hospital in Coos Bay, Oregon manages this.
-
Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillators: Controversy and Coverage
- Now that appropriate use of ICDs is undergoing increased scrutiny by government agencies and by insurers, adherence to ICD placement guidelines is especially crucial. This also makes objective review of these cases more important than ever before. Payer organizations are continuing to have issues with the medically necessity of ICD placement, situations in which an ICD placement does not fall under current guidelines and in areas that require further investigation. This includes over-utilization of ICDs as the primary prevention for patients with a high risk of sudden cardiac death.



