Physician impact analysis predictions in Ontario hospitals: does the emperor have clothes?

Physician impact analysis (PIA) is a human resource planning tool used to predict the impact on hospital resources of adding a new or replacement physician to a hospital's medical staff. This article describes the findings of a study which examined the extent to which PIAs are used in Ontario acute care hospitals and the accuracy of PIA predictions. The results suggest that although PIA appears to be widely used, there is no evidence that it meets the intended policy objective of accurately predicting physician hospital resource use.