The Distribution of Working Time of the Health Care Specialists, Employed in Ambulatory Health Care Institutions
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Abstract
This article analyses the distribution of activities, performed by primary health care specialists (GPs and nurses) during working time. Many countries have been paying special attention to health care oriented primarily towards patient and his needs in the recent years. This attitude also is reflected in the health care reform in Lithuania. However, scientists have reported that health care system is unfavourable and there is lack of management of health care problems, such as queues for consulting, lack of time for consulting the patient, indeterminate referrals or objectives of examinations.
During their work time, health care specialists have to spend more and more time not directly with the patient, but filling documentation. Seeking to change this situation, it is proposed to start applying case management for specific duties of the GPs and nurses.
This study aims to analyse the distribution of activities during the work day of the GPs and nurses, determine the correlations between time costs and characteristics of the respondents and to propose the capable interventions of case management specialist.
The results showed that health care specialists serve on average 28 patients during the working time of one day. This indicator increased 21%, compared with a similar study carried out in 1996. Comparing the time dedicated to the patient’s first consultation, there has been noticed a decrease of 1,4% since 1996.
It was assessed that the majority of GPs spare from 5 to 8 minutes for the first time consultation and only 4 minutes for the second one. In 2013, the time spared for patients constituted 83,6% of the working time. 30,2% of that time was spent on filling documentation. A major part of the documentation work was assigned to the nurses from the primary health care staff. In 2013, it was noticed that the specialists spend only 5,3% of their work time on prevention activities.
During their work time, health care specialists have to spend more and more time not directly with the patient, but filling documentation. Seeking to change this situation, it is proposed to start applying case management for specific duties of the GPs and nurses.
This study aims to analyse the distribution of activities during the work day of the GPs and nurses, determine the correlations between time costs and characteristics of the respondents and to propose the capable interventions of case management specialist.
The results showed that health care specialists serve on average 28 patients during the working time of one day. This indicator increased 21%, compared with a similar study carried out in 1996. Comparing the time dedicated to the patient’s first consultation, there has been noticed a decrease of 1,4% since 1996.
It was assessed that the majority of GPs spare from 5 to 8 minutes for the first time consultation and only 4 minutes for the second one. In 2013, the time spared for patients constituted 83,6% of the working time. 30,2% of that time was spent on filling documentation. A major part of the documentation work was assigned to the nurses from the primary health care staff. In 2013, it was noticed that the specialists spend only 5,3% of their work time on prevention activities.
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