The impact of nurses' professionalism from an innovative peer review committee

Background: Peer review is a vital process through which nurses provide feedback to their peers in real time to advance their professional practice. The purpose of this scholarly project was to determine the impact of implementing an innovative peer review committee on nurses' professionalism.;Methods: A pilot project was conducted in a community hospital to evaluate nurses' professionalism following the design and implementation of a peer review committee. The project design was a pre- and post-interventional pilot study. The Nurse Professional Value Scale Revised (NPVS-R) was used to determine changes in nurses' (N=14) professionalism pre- and post- intervention. Additionally, NPVS-R scores were used to compare professionalism of nurses based on their educational and experiential backgrounds.;Results: The overall mean NPVS-R scores increased from 109.64 to 114.43from pre- to post- intervention; however, this was not a statistically significant change (p=0.347). The overall score of professionalism, a component of the NPVS-R, increased from 3.95 to 4.21, but this was not significant (p=0.359). When comparing the difference in professionalism scores between nurses with their Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) and their Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) or Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degrees pre-implementation, there was a significant difference between the two groups (p=0.038). Yet, post- intervention there was no significant difference between the two groups (p= 0.456). No statistically significant findings were found to show a difference in the level of professionalism according to the nurses' years of experience. Discussion: In this project, the implementation of a peer review committee resulted in increased professionalism scores; however, the change in scores was not statistically significant. This may be due to the small sample size. It is recommended that further research be conducted using a larger sample size to determine the impact of peer review on nurses' professionalism. The results did determine the implementation of a peer review committee improved professionalism scores for ADN prepared nurses and reduced the disparity between the ADN nurses and those with higher degree attainment. In organizations with high level of ADN prepared nurses, the implementation of a peer review committee could be utilized as a tool for increasing nurses' professionalism.