A method to estimate the number of house officers required in teaching hospitals

A method of estimating the number of house officers needed for direct patient care in teaching hospitals is discussed. The method requires six input data elements: average daily census, annual admissions, annual outpatient visits, average house staff hours per inpatient per day, average house staff hours per outpatient visit, and average direct patient care hours per house officer per day. The first three are readily available annual statistics; the fourth and fifth data elements are easily estimable by service chiefs and immediate house staff supervisors. The sixth input item can either be a standard or an estimated value. An approach to estimating the sixth data element is included in the paper. An application of the proposed method is illustrated for 11 clinical services at the Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Medical Center.