Since 1959, the California Medical Association, and more recently, its subsidiary, the Institute for Medical Quality, has been evaluating and providing consultations to individual physicians and hospital medical staff leaders to assist them in achieving and maintaining quality medical care. Physician consultants, who are members of CMA and CALS surveyors, provide objective peer review of the work of a member of a hospital's medical staff. This program is valuable to physicians and medical staffs who identify a need for a peer review by an outside, objective party.
Additional consultants are dependent upon the extent of the consultation.
IMQ requires that the chief of staff and the physician whose care is being reviewed agree to the consultation. After an application is received, it is generally six weeks before consultants can perform the on-site consultation. A report of the consultants' findings and recommendations is prepared and sent to the chief of staff and the physician whose care was the subject of the review, generally four weeks after the visit. Results of the peer review consultation are confidential and are not to be distributed outside the hospital. The best time to request a peer review consultation is when a concern regarding a physicians care has been identified, but no formal actions have been taken, as the consultation is consultative and educational - not a formal part of a disciplinary proceeding.