May the employer take disciplinary action prior to conducting Incident-Based Peer Review?
Employment and licensure issues are separate. An employer may take disciplinary action before review by the peer review committee is conducted, as peer review cannot determine issues related to employment. The role of peer review is to determine if licensure violations have occurred and, if so, if the violations require reporting to the board. If a report to the BON is already required under 301.405(c), then the role of the peer review committee is to investigate whether external factors impacted the error or situation, and to report their findings to a patient safety committee if they determine there were external factors that mitigate or aggravate the circumstances impacting the nurse’s actions.
