Implementing Head and Neck Contouring Peer Review without Pathway Delay: The On-demand Approach

Structure and Processes of Existing Practice in Radiotherapy Peer Review: A Systematic Review of the Literature

“…Table 1 is a summary of these articles describing peer review meeting structure and processes. Of the 17 articles, most were from centres in the USA (n ¼ 10, 58.8%) [14,15,18,20,21,25e27,29,30], followed by Canada (n ¼ 3, 17.6%) [19,23,24]; the UK (n ¼ 3, 17.6%) [17,22,28] and Australia (n ¼ 1, 5.5%) [16].…”

“…Eight institutions (47.1%) held weekly peer review meetings [17e19, 23,24,27,28,30], with a smaller number meeting more frequently than this e two groups met daily [21,25]. One centre reported their practice of 'on-demand' peer review, to avoid causing delays [22]. Nine (52.9%) centres did not report the length of the meetings; of those that did, a scheduled 1-h meeting was most common (n ¼ 6, 35.3%) [14,16,17,23,24,28].…”

“…Six of 17 (35.3%) centres in this review used the following nomenclature 'major change'; 'minor change'; 'no change' to determine the outcome of the peer review discussion [14,17,20,26,27,29]. Six centres (35.3%) used their own bespoke system [15,16,18,21,22,25], with varying levels of detail regarding the recommended changes (see Table 2). Three centres simply recorded 'change' or 'no change' (17.7%) [19,28,30], whereas the 'ABC' system introduced by Lefresne et al [23] was used by two centres (11.8%) [23,24].…”

“…Of these, 10 (58.8%) used electronic databases [16,18,19,21e23,25,26,28,30] and two (11.8%) used written or dictated notes [15,24]. One centre used e-mail to notify colleagues of changes they would recommend (if any) after peer review [22].…”

“…In just under half of all centres (n ¼ 8, 47.1%), there was no record made of whether revised volumes or plans were brought back to peer review for further discussion [15,17,19,23,24,26e28]. Of those that reported this, two centres confirmed that all plan revisions were subsequently re-reviewed (11.8%) [14,21]; whereas six centres (35.3%) specifically stated that they did not bring these cases back for further peer review after amendments were made [16,18,20,22,25,29].…”