Ask the expert: How should an organization transmit proctoring results within the medical staff?

You should treat proctoring results in the same manner as other peer review findings. You should add them to the physician's peer review file and communicate them to the committee that requested the proctoring.

In situations where an entity must use the results to make a recommendation to another medical staff committee or the governing board, you can make the proctor's findings available to that committee. In situations where your organization will use proctoring results to support collegial intervention to improve performance, an individual duly authorized by a peer review committee to undertake the intervention may review and use the results. This individual will typically be a medical staff officer, department chair, or the hospital's vice president of medical affairs.

For more tips, check out Proctoring and Focused Professional Practice Evaluation: Practical Approaches to Verifying Physician Competence, by Robert J. Marder, MD, Mark A. Smith, MD, MBA, FACS; and Todd Sagin, MD, JD, published by HCPro, Inc.