A system for equitable workload distribution in clinical medical physics

Area of Science:

• Medical Physics
• Radiotherapy Physics
• Healthcare Management

Background:

• Clinical medical physics involves diverse tasks, from routine procedures to development projects.
• Equitable workload distribution is challenging, especially in large or multi-site clinics.
• Current methods struggle with the dynamic nature of effort assignment in radiotherapy physics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and study an equitable workload distribution system for radiotherapy physics.
• To address the complexities of effort assignment in dynamic clinical environments.
• To improve fairness and efficiency in physicist workload management.

Main Methods:

• A working group defined clinical tasks and estimated time using oncology information system data, physicist surveys, and consensus.
• Introduced 'equivalent workday' (eWD) as a quantitative unit for effort.
• Developed 'normalized total effort' (nTE) metric to represent individual workload fraction; system implemented and refined over 9 months.

Main Results:

• Pre-implementation, workload differences reached up to 50% between physicists (nTE 10.0%-15.0%).
• Post-implementation, individual workload differences were reduced to within 5% (nTE 12.3%-12.8%).
• System refinements incorporated leave and project time, previously handled informally.

Conclusions:

• A quantitative system for workload distribution was successfully developed and implemented.
• Demonstrated significant improvements in workload equity, transparency, and accountability.
• The system, developed for academic medical centers, shows potential general applicability for other clinics.