ABSTRACT
Background: Inconsistency and a lack of clarity exist regarding the advanced practice registered nurse peer review process in hospitals throughout the country.
Local problem: The current APRN peer review process in place for over a decade at an academic medical center has never been evaluated, and neither fulfills ongoing professional practice evaluation requirements nor meets the expectations of peer review.
Methods: Pre-post intervention quality improvement project (Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence checklist).
Interventions: Using current professional standards and guidelines that meet the requirements for ongoing professional practice evaluation and nursing peer review, a redesigned process and tool was created and piloted in three specialty groups of nurse practitioners (NPs) at the medical center. Satisfaction before and after the pilot survey was measured using a Likert-type scale, and results were compared and analyzed following the completion of the pilot survey.
Results: The posttest measure revealed a statistically significant improvement in satisfaction with the redesigned professional evaluation tool compared with the prepilot peer review tool.
Conclusions: The redesign project demonstrated that using current professional standards and guidelines, a comprehensive process and tool for professional evaluation and peer review is achievable across NP specialties.