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The benefits of peer review

Nurse Leader Weekly, February 7, 2008

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Historically speaking, nurses have long conducted some level of peer review: Since the first nurse conferred with another about caring for a patient, some form of peer review has been in place. Yet when nurses are considering whether to implement a formal peer review process, or if the organization has already started down that road, many may wonder about the benefits of conducting peer review and ask questions like, "Why now?"

Time is of the essence. Medical staffs have been peer reviewing their cases for years, and as fellow professionals, we must hold ourselves to the same high standards. Nurses are professionals who must hold each other accountable and evaluate patient care so we can eliminate system and human errors. Nurses are no different than physicians in this way. The goals and benefits of peer review include:

• Improving the quality of care provided by individual nurses
• Monitoring the performance of nurses
• Identifying opportunities for performance improvement
• Identifying systemwide issues

If the process of peer review is to be effective, then a formal structure must be created to allow for the tracking and trending of information and the identification of potential system or human failures. Case review is useful for this, as it presents opportunities to identify failures through investigation so nurses and other team members can correct them before injury occurs in a patient.

Editor's Note: This excerpt was adapted from HCPro's new book, Nursing Peer Review: A Practical Approach to Promoting Professional Nursing Accountability, featured in the Reading Room on HCPro's new online resource center, www.StrategiesForNurseManagers.com!

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