21st-century peer review

Last month, my column covered the evolution of peer review during the 20th century and some lessons learned from its successes and failures. To quickly summarize, the changes in medical staff structures and functions began to intertwine with a desire for better measurement of physician performance in the first decade of the 21st century. This would ultimately impact the following four areas of medical staff peer review: Multi-specialty peer review, Standardization of case review, Aggregate physician performance measures, Movement toward a positive peer review culture.

Below are the summaries of each of these four changes. While many organizations implemented them simultaneously, this is not necessarily a strict historical progression, and each change will be considered independent of the others.

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