[Burden of bureaucracy in surgery : Results of a national survey]

Bureaucratic tasks in everyday surgical clinical practice are time-consuming. Due to the increasing shortage of skilled workers and the growing need for care, it is necessary to relieve surgeons of administrative tasks.

The analysis aims to make the nature and extent of administrative tasks transparent in order to derive options for action.

Data were collected as a survey using a digital questionnaire with 29 questions.

1632 BDC members participated in the survey with a response rate of 19%. The survey results illustrate that surgeons manage a particularly high workload and 82% of full-time employees reported working an average of 49-79 h per week. The proportion of bureaucratic tasks proved to be high, with 3-4 h per day according to 67% of full-time employees. While 94% of full-time employees stated that around 1-3 h of bureaucratic work should be delegated daily but only 42% are authorized to delegate bureaucratic tasks. Redundant documentation arises primarily from the need for duplicate documentation of identical data, audits by the medical service as well as quality audits. 88% of respondents rated the benefit of information technology in reducing the documentation burden as relatively low or minimal.

The results fit into the context of other recent surveys on the burden of bureaucracy.

To improve the situation, legislators, partners in joint self-government and hospital management have a duty to reduce documentation requirements, optimize processes and improve opportunities for electronic data exchange.