The NPRC Clinical Service Review provides hospital leaders with the necessary perspective to understand the underlying problems of a dysfunctional or underperforming individual service or an entire department of the hospital.

The scope of the Clinical Service Review is tailored to the needs of the hospital and may encompass:

• a complete analysis of the service’s clinical care and administrative processes
• a review of one or more physicians within the service who have continued poor outcomes, practice patterns or behavioral issues, or
• a review of the medical records of selected cases performed by one or more of the service’s medical staff

NPRC’s expert peer reviewers will identify the issues that may be contributing to the service’s poor outcomes, high costs, or over utilization of hospital resources.

Clinical Service Review Reports

NPRC’s Clinical Service Review Reports clearly present the findings of NPRC’s highly qualified physician peer reviewers. Additional review by NPRC’s staff and legal counsel ensures that each NPRC Report contains an expert, comprehensive evaluation of quality of care, patient safety and hospital liability issues. The NPRC Report provides a sound basis for determining the necessary action to remedy the problems and if additional peer review action is necessary.

In general, the Report of a Clinical Service Review includes the following components:

• an Executive Summary that concisely encapsulates the findings of the NPRC Report
• a review of the portions of the medical records and other documentation reviewed by the NPRC peer reviewers
• clear explanations of any clinical practice variations that may indicate that one or more providers require additional peer review or that service procedures require modification
• clear and concise findings, conclusions and recommendations regarding clinical and/or operational issues
• references to current medical literature and comparative data, benchmarks and accepted national standards used in the Report
• the curriculum vitae of the NPRC peer reviewer(s) performing the peer review