RADPEER (Radiology Peer Review) is a quality assurance and improvement program developed by the American College of Radiology (ACR) to assist radiologists with peer review during their routine workflow. It is the leading method for peer review in the United States, with over 18,000 radiologists and 1,100 groups participating.
The core process of RADPEER is designed to be non-disruptive. When a radiologist is interpreting a new imaging study, and prior images of the same area of interest exist, they may form an opinion about the previous interpretation. If they score the previous interpretation using the standardized rating scale, this constitutes a peer review event. The latest recommended scoring system uses a 1-3 scale (1=Concur, 3=Discrepancy that should be made most of the time) with 'a' or 'b' sub-classifications to indicate clinical significance.
Key Features and Capabilities
- Routine Workflow Integration: Peer review is performed during the interpretation of a new study, eliminating the need for separate, dedicated review sessions.
- Secure Online Platform: Scores and report acquisition data are submitted via a secure website (eRADPEER).
- Performance Benchmarking: The system generates reports that provide summary statistics and comparisons by modality for every participating physician, group-level data, and aggregated data across all RADPEER participants.
- Accreditation Compliance: Active participation in RADPEER is one option for facilities to fulfill the peer review requirement for ACR accreditation (e.g., CT, MR, NM, PET, US).
- Anonymity: The system uses unique group and physician IDs, ensuring that ACR does not collect or know the individual physicians' identifiers, promoting a non-punitive, peer-learning environment.
- Data Export: Supports data conversion to a standardized XML format for integration with other systems.
Target Users and Use Cases
RADPEER is primarily targeted at radiologists, radiology groups, and imaging facilities in the United States. Its main use cases are:
- Fulfilling the ACR Facility Accreditation peer review requirement.
- Supporting Practice Quality Improvement (PQI) and Ongoing Professional Practice Evaluation (OPPE) for Maintenance of Certification (MOC).
- Providing data-driven feedback to clinicians to identify patterns and improve diagnostic performance.
Note: The program does not collect Protected Health Information (PHI), ensuring patient confidentiality.