How many health professionals does a patient see during an average hospital stay?

To assess how many health professionals are directly involved in a patient's stay at Auckland City Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand.

A retrospective review of the records was carried out of all patients admitted through the Admission and Planning Unit and the Emergency Department on a chosen day. Every health professional who wrote in the medical notes was counted and tabulated for each patient.

81 patients were admitted--47 medical and 34 surgical. In medicine, the patients saw an average of 17.8 health professionals during their hospitalisation (95%CI 0.0-36.7) (median 17) (range 5 to 44); an average of 6.0 doctors (0.0-12.6) (5) (2-21); 10.7 nurses (0.0-22.3) (11) (3-24); and 1.0 allied health workers (0.0-4.5) (0) (0-6). In surgery, the patients saw an average of 26.6 health professionals during their hospitalisation (95%CI 0.0-66.7) (median 21.5) (range 2 to 75); an average of 10.0 doctors (0.0-25.8) (8.5) (1-33); 15.9 nurses (0.0-39.2) (13.5) (1-44); and 0.8 allied health workers (0-3.3) (0) (0-4).

Modern hospital healthcare delivery involves many different healthcare professionals. Patients have more nurse contacts than doctors (p<0.0001). Surgical patients see more health professionals than medical patients overall (p=0.01) but the daily rate was not found to be statistically different (p=0.3). Involvement of different health professionals may necessitate good communication/handover processes as well as possible changes to traditional training methods.