RADPEER™
Hani Abujudeh MD, MBA, FSIR
Associate Professor of Radiology
Massachusetts General Hospital
Harvard Medical school
Disclosures
Book Royalties
RADPEER™
RADPEER™ is a simple tool developed to allow
physicians to do peer review during the course of a
day’s work.
When a new study is interpreted with an prior
study for comparison, a peer review of the
accuracy of the interpretation of the previous
examination occurs.
RADPEER™
 Piloted RADPEER™ in 2001
 Offered to members in 2002
 e RADPEER ™ developed in 2005
 Scoring changes implemented in 2009
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Signal events
 American Medical Accreditation Program by the AMA in 1998

 The publication of the, Institute of Medicine report To Err Is
Human in March 2000.

An ABMS task force on the maintenance of certification,
Competence Initiatives: A Status Report
 Listed four components of maintenance of certification, which
will be required by all specialty boards
 These components are professional standing, commitment to
lifelong learning and periodic self-assessment, cognitive
expertise, and the evaluation of performance in practice.
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ACR RADPEER
 In response to the interests of the public and the health
care community, the ACR convened a patient safety task
force.
 The task force concluded that to meet the fourth
requirement of maintenance of certification
a successful peer review program must be national,
uniform in structure and function across practices,
accurate, facile, nonpunitive, and able to be
integrated into a facility’s quality assurance program.
 The task force concluded that no existing programs met
these criteria
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RADPEER ™
Four point scoring system:
1. Concur with interpretation
2. Discrepancy in Interpretation/not ordinarily expected to be made
(understandable miss)
a.
b.
unlikely to be clinically significant
likely to be clinically significant
3. Discrepancy in Interpretation/ should be made most of the time
a. unlikely to be clinically significant
b. likely to be clinically significant
4. Discrepancy in Interpretation/ should be made
almost every time - misinterpretation of finding
a. unlikely to be clinically significant
b. likely to be clinically significant
Scores of 2b, 3 or 4 should be reviewed through the facility’s internal QA
process prior to submission to ACR
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 The median number of cases reviewed in RADPEER is 776
each year, which translates into 3 to 4 cases reviewed per
working day.
 The RADPEER system is not designed to be a sole OPPE
measure, but it can be incorporated into such programs. The
committee discourages the use of scores as a means of
competency assessment and encourages the maintenance of
the nonpunitive nature and anonymity in scoring.

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RADPEER could be expanded and used as a means to
collect data on other aspects of quality and safety in
radiology.
Improving the performance of the system as a whole is far more beneficial than
eliminating the outliers (Deming, W.E., Out of the Crisis2000, cambridge: MIT Press.)
( assessing competence vs improving performance)
RADPEER™
 April 2014
 Over 1,170 participating groups
 Over 17,500 physicians
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1200
1000
800
600
RADPEER Growth
400
200
0
FY 2005
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FY 06
FY 07
FY 08
FY 09
Fy 10
FY 11
FY 12
FY 13
RADPEER™
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RADPEER™
 Data submitted to ACR via website
 Reports for individuals and group available
electronically
 ABR MOC Reports
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RADPEER™ as a PQI Project
 Radiologists can select RADPEER™ to be used as
one of their projects for Maintenance of Certification
for the ABR (American Board of Radiology)
 The MOC process includes:




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Evidence of professional standing (license)
Lifelong learning and self-assessment (SAMs, CME)
Cognitive expertise (exam)
Practice quality improvement
(PQI project such as RADPEER™)
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Cost of RADPEER™ Participation
 Annual fee for
participation in
RADPEER™ is
based on the
number of
physicians in the
group
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# Physicians
Annual Fee
2-5
6-15
16-25
26-35
36-45
46-55
56-65
66-75
76-85
86-95
96-105
106-115
116-125
$800
$1,500
$2,200
$3,000
$3,800
$4,600
$5,400
$6,200
$7,000
$7,800
$8,600
$9,400
$10,200
https://radpeer.acr.org
habujudeh@partners.org
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