Instruments evaluating the duration and pace of clinical encounters: A scoping review

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Quality
• Patient Experience
• Clinical Operations

Background:

• Hurried clinical encounters lead to patient and clinician dissatisfaction.
• These encounters may indicate and contribute to suboptimal healthcare quality.
• A need exists for instruments to measure the experience of time in clinical settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify patient- or clinician-reported instruments measuring perceptions of time adequacy in clinical encounters.
• To assess the availability and characteristics of existing measurement tools.

Main Methods:

• Conducted a comprehensive database search from inception to July 2023.
• Identified instruments and single items assessing perceived time adequacy in clinical encounters.
• Characterized tools by time domain (duration/pace), responder (patient/clinician), and reference (general/specific encounter).

Main Results:

• Identified 96 instruments containing 107 time-related items.
• 81% of items measured perceived encounter duration; 18% measured pace.
• Most items (71%) were patient-reported, assessing general care experience or specific encounter aspects.

Conclusions:

• Existing items can capture patient and clinician perceptions of encounter duration and pace.
• Further validation is required to confirm their utility in identifying hurried consultations.
• These measures can inform quality improvement interventions targeting time adequacy in care.