Developing an Integrated Evaluation Model for Physician Comprehensive Workload Tethered to Outpatient Practice: An...

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Occupational Health
• Medical Workforce Research

Background:

• Previous physician workload studies often used only objective or mental workload, failing to capture the full picture.
• A comprehensive evaluation framework integrating both objective and mental workload is needed to accurately assess physician burden.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and apply an integrated evaluation model for physician comprehensive workload (PCW) in outpatient settings.
• To identify factors influencing PCW and physicians experiencing high workload.

Main Methods:

• A comprehensive evaluation framework combining objective workload, task-level mental workload, service quality, and patient complexity was proposed.
• An integrated PCW model was developed and applied to cross-sectional data from 1,934 Chinese outpatient physicians.
• Multiple linear and multinomial logistic regression analyses were used to identify influencing factors.

Main Results:

• The average PCW score was 811.30, with 11.2% of physicians identified as having very high PCW.
• Factors associated with higher PCW included being female, from Eastern/Western China, and working >60 hours/week.
• Very high PCW was linked to being female, older, from Western China, lower education/titles, longer tenure, and working in tertiary A hospitals or specific departments.

Conclusions:

• The developed PCW model offers a comprehensive approach to assessing physician workload in outpatient practice.
• This framework can help hospital managers accurately identify physicians with high workload who might be missed by single-dimension assessments.