AllMed Announces Annual Hospital Peer Review Surv...( Survey Suggests Hospitals Increas...),Health

Survey Suggests Hospitals Increasingly use IROS to address the Joint

Commission's 2007 Standards

PORTLAND, Ore., Oct. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- AllMed Healthcare Management announced today the results of its annual Hospital Peer Review Client Satisfaction Survey. The independent review organization (IRO) surveyed about 250 U.S. hospital professionals on their use of AllMed's external peer review services. The survey included hospitals ranging in size from fewer than 100 beds to more than 500, from across the U.S.

"In seven out of the eight service areas we measured, our hospital peer review clients rated our service as excellent," said Skip Freedman, M.D., Executive Medical Director. "We believe that strong response shows our value to their quality and patient safety initiatives."

More than 80 percent of the respondents rated AllMed excellent or above average in these seven categories: overall quality; credentials of peer review specialists; thoroughness; turn-around time; availability of medical staff; responsiveness, and customer service.

"The new 2007 Joint Commission standards broadened the use of peer review and that increased every hospital's need for external peer review from IROs like AllMed," said Freedman. "To provide unbiased evaluations, many are turning to IROs, not just to evaluate sentinel events, but to assure quality in credentialing and privileging and to evaluate physician practices more systematically."

This emphasis on improving the quality of care showed up in the survey: 32 percent of respondents said that their top priorities were in-depth reviews meeting the commission's focused professional practice evaluation (FPPE), while 36 percent said credentialing and privileging support. When asked about ongoing professional practice evaluations (OPPE), 95 percent said that peer review was their primary source of information and 56 percent said they conducted OPPE at six month or quarterly
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