Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility. In academia peer review is often used to determine an academic paper's suitability for publication.
Peer review can be categorized by the type of activity and by the field or profession in which the activity occurs. In general, those involved in a given profession or particular organization identify their particular process by the generic term "peer review". So, even when qualifiers are applied the elements of peer review may appear to be inconsistent. For example, medical peer review can refer to clinical peer review, or the peer evaluation of clinical teaching skills for both physicians and nurses, or scientific peer review of journal articles, or to a secondary round of peer review for the clinical value of articles concurrently published in medical journals. Moreover, "medical peer review" has been used by the American Medical Association to refer not only to the process of improving quality and safety in health care organizations, but also to the process of rating clinical behavior or compliance with professional society membership standards.
Thus, the terminology has poor standardization and specificity, particularly as a database search term.
Read more about Peer Review: Professional Peer Review, Scholarly Peer Review, Criticism of Peer Review, Peer Review of Government Policy, History
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