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Real time analysis of psychiatrists’ workflow in German hospitals
- Source :
- Nordic Journal of Psychiatry. 65:112-116
- Publication Year :
- 2010
- Publisher :
- Informa UK Limited, 2010.
-
Abstract
- The increasing administrative workload of German psychiatrists has led to rising dissatisfaction among physicians. Previous studies have assessed job satisfaction by conducting surveys among medical professionals. However, to date, no objective work task analysis has been conducted to investigate the workflow of psychiatrists in Germany.The objective of this study was to evaluate physicians' workflow, to assess the level of work efficiency of German psychiatrists in a real time analysis.A trained observer accompanied 24 psychiatrists throughout complete shifts. A mobile computer was used to record all tasks. All psychiatrists were observed for total of 980:04:15 h.The average psychiatrist's workday lasted 09:03:19 h (standard deviation, s=01:01:20 h). Internal communication was the most frequently observed main activity (mean=2:58:15 h; s=0:48:10 h). Psychiatrists spent on average 0:52:12 h a day on indirect patient care (s=0:32:50 h; 5.60%). All administrative tasks accounted for roughly 1 h of the average workday (s=0:17:58 h; 10.75%). During the wobservation period, physicians were interrupted 17.37 times a day on average (s=5.81). During the observational period, simultaneous activities were recorded for a total of 17:27:54 h.This research is the first to investigate workflow of psychiatrists in German hospitals. Their work was found to be mostly communicative, although administrative work also demanded much of their time. High rates of multitasking and interruptions in the workflow, as seen for the psychiatrists in this study, could lead to possible medical errors, making further investigation of current working conditions necessary.
- Subjects :
- Adult
Male
medicine.medical_specialty
National Health Programs
Work efficiency
Psychiatric Department, Hospital
Workload
Efficiency, Organizational
German
Germany
Task Performance and Analysis
Medical Staff, Hospital
medicine
Humans
Work task
Real time analysis
Psychiatry
business.industry
Communication
Data Collection
Internal communications
language.human_language
Berlin
Psychiatry and Mental health
Workflow
Computers, Handheld
language
Female
Job satisfaction
business
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15024725 and 08039488
- Volume :
- 65
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Nordic Journal of Psychiatry
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....205b9ac2e378087b568f6237481ef17e