C12370 Attending Physician Workload Safety and Quality Survey
Invention novelty: A survey/questionnaire to collect information regarding physician workload, factors affecting workload, and associated impacts on patient care safety and quality.
Value Proposition:
Attending physicians’ workload has an impact on patient safety and the quality of medical care; however, workload and its associated clinical impacts have primarily been studied for resident-physicians and nurses only. This survey queries attending physician regarding practice characteristics, workload, frequency of an unsafe census, and physician opinion of what a safe workload would be in each respective physician’s setting. Additional advantages of this survey include:
- Measures the workload of attending physicians, an unexplored area
- Provides means for physicians to rate the impact of average census on quality process and outcome measures
- Can be used by hospital administrators to identify potential problems and solutions
Technical Details: Johns Hopkins researchers developed a questionnaire to provide an overall assessment of an attending physician’s workload. The survey queries physician, hospital, and team characteristics; workload; frequency of an unsafe census; and what a “safe workload” would be in the given setting. Inventors measured workload as the number of patient encounters performed per shift and defined safe workload as a workload that offered a minimal potential for error or harm. The questionnaire has been used to assess the perceived impact of average hospitalist workload on patient safety and quality-of-care metrics in an electronic survey of 890 hospitalists enrolled in an online physician community.
Looking for Partners: To develop and commercialize the technology as electronic or paper-based survey for healthcare providers.
Stage of Development: Survey used in clinical assessment
Data Availability: Survey available for review
Publication(s)/Associated Cases: JAMA Int Med. 2013;():1-2.
Categories: Research Tools
Keywords: Questionnaire, Survey, Attending physician, Workload
