Quality & Clinical
Physician Peer Review
Peer review is an essential part of any healthcare organization’s quality program.
External peer review can help organizations meet internal and external peer review requirements, including those mandated by CMS and other accrediting organizations. Hospitals often use external peer review to address lack of internal capacity and free up staff time to focus on higher value efforts (like seeing patients). Some clients use this service as a second opinion—an additional measure of objectivity that can result in better overall patient care.
External peer review allows your organization to receive an objective evaluation of your providers’ patient care and diagnosis. This helps ensure you are meeting standards of care, resulting in higher-quality patient care and medical outcomes.
You may select charts for review when concerns arise about the appropriateness of patient care, or as part of your organization’s overall quality assurance or credentialing process. This may include:
- Regularly scheduled quality assessments
- Focused Professional Practice Evaluation (FPPE)
- Ongoing Professional Practice Evaluation (OPPE)
- Patient care or outcome quality concerns
- Adverse events
We conduct peer reviews both onsite and remotely, and all our physician reviewers are board certified or board eligible. WHS-HQS is also protected by a Coordinated Quality Improvement Program (CQIP) and a Patient Safety Organization (the NWSQ PSO), helping protect its peer review documents from discovery. For more information about WHS-HQS’ External Peer Review Services, contact Rich Boucher at richb@wsha.org or 206-216-2504.
