feature
Dr. Jan Ahuja conducts assessments
of physicians who work in walk-in
clinics.
By sharing their
collective expertise
and experience,
our peer assessors
are helping create
assessment tools
tailored to their
respective discipline
12
Over the past several years, the
College has averaged more than
1,700 peer assessments a year,
carried out across more than 30
disciplines. Historically, less than
15% of randomly-selected assessments require ongoing follow-up
by the College’s Quality Assurance
Committee. There are already wellestablished processes in place to
address the practice deficiencies of
this smaller group of doctors who
don’t receive satisfactory outcomes.
The Peer Assessment Redesign’s
intent is to focus on the majority
of doctors by providing a more
educational, quality improvementfocused experience.
So far, hundreds of peer assessors, including Dr. Ahuja, have
participated in the redesign. By
sharing their collective expertise
and experience, our peer assessors
are helping create assessment tools
tailored to their respective discipline to establish a consistent, high
bar of quality that exemplifies best
practices. While not intended to replace other standards of care within
their discipline, defining quality
within the context of peer assessment assures that assessors provide
physicians with more relevant and
consistent feedback. As the majority of practices have no significant
gaps identified, this feedback can
assist the physician to improve their
practice from “good” to “better”.
Twelve disciplines are expected to
begin using the new procedures and
tools for peer assessments in 2016;
the first disciplines/specialities
seeing the change will be Walk-In
Clinic, Hospitalists, Dermatology,
and GP-Psychotherapy.
Before the new peer assessment
tools and procedures are implemented, physicians within each
discipline will have an opportunity
to provide feedback on how quality
care is defined and evaluated within
their practice area.
“Having practising physicians review and provide input on assessment
tools is an important element supporting the acceptability and validity
of the peer assessment program,” said
Mr. Dan Faulkner, Deputy Registrar.
Providing feedback can also be used
for earning continuing professional
development credits.
Physicians will be asked to provide
feedback on the prospective peer
assessment tools through an online
questionnaire. Input on the definitions of quality care used in future
peer assessments is also being sought
from the speciality organizations.
“Most physicians have told us
that their peer assessment experience was very collegial and informative,” says Mr. Hillier. “We hope
they’ll find peer assessments in the
future to be even more beneficial
with relevant and useful feedback
to help them provide the best care
possible for their patients.”
Implementation of the new
assessment procedures will happen progressively over time, on
a discipline by discipline basis.
Physicians can gain more information on what is involved in the
peer assessment process by visiting:
www.cpso.on.ca/CPSO-Members/
Peer-Assessment.
Dialogue Issue 4, 2015
Issue4_15.indd 12
2015-12-16 9:35 AM