Developing a cooperative provider-based statewide peer review service: early experience

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of a model of overcoming local barriers to physician peer review through development of a statewide provider-based physician peer review service. For this purpose, the cooperative demonstration project of the Institute for Quality Healthcare, The University of Iowa and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, was used. A consortium of 43 Iowa hospitals developed a physician peer review service utilizing a pool of physician reviewers from member hospitals. Thirty-six peer reviews were conducted in 23 different hospitals by 37 different reviewers throughout the state of Iowa in the first 2 years of operation. Reviews of surgical specialists, psychiatrists, and psychiatric services were requested most frequently. The satisfaction of hospitals with the physician peer review service has thus far been gratifying. The long-term financial viability of the physician peer review service has yet to be demonstrated. This cooperative organizational model of a provider-based physician peer review service may be reproducible and valuable to health care providers in other parts of the United States.