![]() RELATED: Tangible Results in Fighting Physician BurnoutĪs much as 77 percent of a doctor’s time spent on preventive services, however, could be safely delegated to nonclinician care-team members, the UCSF researchers proposed. A key determinant is the number of tasks that can be delegated.Ī study by the University of California at San Francisco’s Center for Excellence in Primary Care in 2012 looked at this issue and determined that if a primary care physician does everything herself - screening, counseling, immunization, drug prescription, routine chronic care plus treatment of acute conditions - working 43 hours a week for 47.1 weeks a year (the average estimated by the American Academy of Family Physicians), she can accommodate a maximum panel of only 983 patients. The number of patients to whom a doctor can deliver excellent care without sacrificing health and job satisfaction depends on many factors. Almost a quarter of their time is taken up with nonclinical (and frustrating) paperwork. And most physicians would probably tell you it needs to drop more.”Īccording to a 2018 survey by the Physicians Foundation, doctors on average work 51 hours a week and see 20 patients a day. Today, Ellison says, the size of patient panels nationally “probably ranges from 1,800 to 2,000. However, advances in technology and in team support have eased doctors’ workload significantly. RELATED: Preventing Physician Suicide Recognizing Symptoms, Improving Support Meanwhile, burnout and suicide rates among physicians have soared. Since this is humanly impossible, the quality of care patients ought to receive has suffered nationwide, studies show. age and disease distribution, a doctor would have to work 17 hours a day - seven days a week, all year, without a break. According to criteria used by Duke University researchers in a series of 2009 studies, to deliver all the recommended preventive, chronic and acute care services needed by 3,000 patients with a typical U.S. Thirty-four years ago, when he began his career with the Kaiser health care system, Southern California Permanente Medical Group executive medical director and board chairman Edward Ellison, MD, says, it was not unusual for the number of patients in a primary care doctor’s panel to exceed 3,000. The average patient, if he’s fortunate, thinks of his internist as a sympathetic confidante.īut how many other patients do they imagine their own personal physician shares this intimate bond with? Would they be surprised to realize it might be 2,500 - or more? The average patient, if she’s fortunate, feels a warm, individual rapport with her family doctor. Not as many as required - but delegation can lessen the workload, says a university study.
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