Waters Teresa M, Parsons Jennifer, Warnecke Richard, Almagor Orit, Budetti Peter P
Department of Preventive Medicine, Center for Health Services Research, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, USA.
Jt Comm J Qual Saf. 2003 Aug;29(8):416-24. doi: 10.1016/s1549-3741(03)29050-x.
The National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) serves as a federal information clearinghouse on malpractice payments for and disciplinary sanctions against health care practitioners. Hospitals are required to query the NPDB biannually for practitioners with clinical privileges, and other health care entities with significant peer review are encouraged to query the NPDB. A study was conducted to determine whether health care organizations find the NPDB useful.
A survey was conducted of 1,038 organizations that queried the NPDB between March 1998 and February 1999; 653 of those respondents also answered questions regarding 1,639 specific matched responses (feedback from the NPDB when the practitioner in question had one or more reports).
Overall, the entities rated querying the NPDB as very useful (6.16 on a 7-point scale). More than 21% of matched responses contained new information, and this information altered institutional credentialing decisions in more than 5% of the cases.
Many of the results from this study are consistent with findings in Office of Inspector General reports. The fact that 5% of credentialing decisions were altered because of NPDB information suggests that practitioner self-report is an inadequate mechanism for soliciting credentialing information.
NPDB reports provide accurate and complete information that is useful to providers in their credentialing process.
国家从业者数据库（NPDB）是一个联邦信息交换中心，用于存储医疗从业者的医疗事故赔偿和纪律处分信息。医院必须每两年查询一次NPDB，以了解具有临床特权的从业者情况，同时鼓励其他进行重要同行评审的医疗保健机构查询NPDB。开展了一项研究，以确定医疗保健组织是否认为NPDB有用。
对1998年3月至1999年2月期间查询NPDB的1038个组织进行了调查；其中653名受访者还回答了有关1639个特定匹配回复（当相关从业者有一份或多份报告时，NPDB给出的反馈）的问题。
总体而言，这些机构将查询NPDB评为非常有用（在7分制中为6.16分）。超过21%的匹配回复包含新信息，并且这些信息在超过5%的案例中改变了机构的资格认证决定。
这项研究的许多结果与监察长办公室报告中的发现一致。由于NPDB信息而改变了5%的资格认证决定，这一事实表明从业者自我报告作为获取资格认证信息的机制并不充分。
NPDB报告提供了准确和完整的信息，对提供者在资格认证过程中很有用。
