Balancing Clinician Workload Through Strategic Patient Panel Designs

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Clinical Operations
• Health Systems Science

Background:

• Clinician workload, burnout, and staffing shortages are critical issues in primary care.
• Patient panel size directly influences appointment volume and clinician workload.
• Optimizing panel size is essential for improving patient care and operational efficiency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To model the optimal clinician panel size in a primary care setting.
• To determine panel sizes that maximize clinician capacity and balance appointment types.
• To reduce variability in appointment volumes across different clinician groups.

Main Methods:

• Utilized one year of appointment and panel data from a Department of Family Medicine.
• Included data from 82,881 patients and 105 clinicians.
• Employed an optimization-based modeling approach considering panel management time (PMT).

Main Results:

• The optimization approach reduced appointment volume variability by 88% for physician groups.
• Resulting optimal panel sizes ranged from 211 to 232 appointments per clinician.
• Similar workload balance improvements were observed for advanced practice clinicians and residents.

Conclusions:

• Strategic use of optimization-based approaches significantly improves workload distribution.
• Appropriate panel sizing positively impacts clinician well-being and patient access to care.
• This method enhances clinic productivity and the overall quality of care delivered.