Effective Peer Review, Fourth Edition

Robert J. Marder, MD

Peer review continues to rate as a top challenge in healthcare organizations. Even if they are meeting regulatory standards, organizations struggle to develop a peer review program that is unbiased and meaningful, making it difficult to change physicians’ punitive view of the process.

Now in its fourth edition, Effective Peer Review has been significantly updated and revised, providing even more practical details and policies to help medical staffs reduce peer review bias and implement an approach focused on performance improvement. The book addresses ways to enhance all of the components of a successful competency assessment program, from case review to OPPE and FPPE, with entire chapters dedicated to medical staff culture, multispecialty peer review, and avoiding peer review pitfalls.

New to this edition are chapters that tackle case review from all angles, with detailed guides for peer review coordinators, physician reviewers, and peer review committees. There are also policies for successful OPPE, updated metrics to help measure the effectiveness of your program for case review and OPPE, and guidance on reporting results to the medical executive committee and the board. This edition also looks at how the changing healthcare landscape is affecting competence assessment, such as how to conduct peer review on a healthcare team or outside of the traditional hospital walls.

This book provides:

• Practical, proven techniques to eliminate bias and develop meaningful physician performance improvement opportunities
• A detailed guide to creating a dynamic multispecialty peer review committee
• Proven methods for conducting meaningful case review from case identification to committee decision and follow-up
• Case studies from the field to illustrate key concepts
• A step-by-step guide for peer review self-assessment and redesign
• Approaches to engage physicians in the peer review process
• National Practitioner Data Bank reporting requirements and other regulations related to peer review

This updated edition includes:

• How to conduct case review from every position: peer review coordinator, physician reviewer, and peer review committee
• Metrics to measure the effectiveness of your peer review program
• Information on conducting peer review with a healthcare team
• Sample policies, forms, and procedures for case review, OPPE, and FPPE
• New and expanded case studies

Take the worry out of HIPAA training reminders

Continuing the excellence of the earlier editions, h-mail, Fourth Edition: HIPAA and HITECH Privacy and Security Training Reminders for Healthcare Staff, is a creative, cost-effective solution to establish and reinforce information privacy and security awareness at your facility. This CD-ROM resource contains 52 new and unique messages - an entire year's worth of valuable educational reminders - that you send via e-mail to your facility's workforce.

Includes HITECH and breach notification training

There's no easier way to fulfill HIPAA's requirement to provide periodic reminders to staff. These realistic training exercises reinforce key HIPAA and HITECH principles and breach notification points, and reinforce the day-to-day best practices you expect your staff to follow.

Ready to use, right out of the box

Your CD-ROM includes 52 new privacy and security messages. These are divided into 13 questions and answers, 13 case scenario files, 13 tip files, and 13 five-question, multiple-choice quiz files. Mix the order in which you launch each weekly bulletin a quiz this week, a case scenario next week to keep the training and learning fun. Customize the messages to include specifics about your organization's policies.

Along with all new messages, you'll have access to an interactive Jeopardy-style game staff can play to reinforce learning and retention of important HIPAA privacy and security concepts.

You'll also receive cartoons in JPEG/GIF files to add some humor to your training e-mails, and a PowerPoint presentation for more detailed training sessions.

h-mail, Fourth Edition provides one of the easiest ways to reinforce your HIPAA training and ensure that staff understand your related policies and procedures. You have to provide HIPAA training and educate staff on the HITECH requirements.