The analysis of family practice workloads by seriousness

There is a need for a measure of the overall seriousness of a given family practice workload. In the past, such measurements have been attempted in various ways. In this work, the rubrics of the Canuck Book Classification (a classification of health problems in family practice) were rated for seriousness. There was sufficient agreement on 96 rubrics for them to be used as indicators of the seriousness of workloads in general. Some examples of the uses of the system are shown. Several difficulties were encountered; these are not insuperable, and the method deserves to be developed further.