Lights, camera ... peer review?

Might surgeons soon be rated based on videos of their work? Videography in surgical skill peer review was named as a HealthLeaders Media Top Healthcare Quality Issue for 2014. The article cited a New England Journal of Medicine study which found that when surgeons watched procedure videos and rated their peers on skill and technique, their high or low ranking correlated well with the patient's actual outcomes and complications.

Surgeons were allowed to submit videos of what they considered their best work. The reviewers found enormous variation on a one- to five-point scale, and patients whose surgeons were ranked lower had twice the rate of death and other postoperative preventable events, such as readmissions and reoperations, as the surgeons who received the best scores.

Read the complete article here.

Source: HealthLeaders