Blind voting at peer review committee meetings

Bias is a common stumbling block to effective peer review. Bias can take a well-meaning committee that is truly focused on improvement and make it appear as if it is practicing sham peer review. 

Blind voting can be used to increase members' ability to vote with their conscience without the pressure of a show of hands. A good example of this system would be one in which a committee utilizes an audience response system to allow the members to vote privately. The voting results are displayed immediately so that the members are aware of the case level assessment.

Voting truly reflects the opinions of the committee members. If not done blindly, a show of hands would be unanimous; it would be difficult to say that members were voting according to their conscience. Group pressure would prevail, and hands would go up as members looked around the table. With an audience response system, the results are more telling—rarely is there a unanimous vote.