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In September, 2005, AllMed conducted research about the issues surrounding external hospital peer review. The purpose of this survey was to determine the problems which hospitals and medical groups are looking to solve when sending out cases for external review. The findings were quite interesting, as follows:

' All of the survey respondents said they had sent a peer review out during the past six months.

' Fifty percent of the respondents sent out one to five peer reviews, while 35 percent sent out more than five. Of these, eight percent sent out more than 20 in the past six months.

The reasons respondents gave for sending out peer reviews included the following:

' Eliminating conflicts of interest (93%)
' Gaining access to specialist expertise (63%)
' Improving quality or risk management (59%)
' Improving patient safety (52%)
' Preventing litigation (22%)
' Meeting regulatory requirements (15%)
' Overcoming staffing shortages (4%)

According to one respondent, their hospital relies on external reviews because it is unable to perform internal reviews due to conflict of interests and limited subspecialty expertise. The respondents from smaller community hospitals commented that they lacked an adequate number of peers to conduct an internal review, especially in sensitive situations. What was more interesting is that 78 percent of the respondents said they would proactively consider sending out peer reviews to an external reviewer in the future.

It's clear from these results that independent review organizations like AllMed are playing an increasing role in helping hospitals improve the quality of care and, at the same time, reduce the risks associated with the review process. For information about AllMed's hospital peer review services, please visit our website, or download our free hospital peer review white paper (http://www.allmedmd.com/resources/downloads/wp_bppr.htm).