Professors from IIM- Ahmedabad and IIT- Bombay carry out a study to help doctors manage their time better

Updated on: Saturday, June 22, 2013

The ever increasing load of patient care is putting severe constraints on doctors' time for teaching and research. Professors from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) have carried out a study to help doctors in a teaching hospital manage their time better.

The study - Planning the Activities of Doctors in a Teaching Hospital by IIM-A professors Debjit Roy and K V Ramani, and IIT-B professor Sahil Narang has drawn out alternate timetables for doctors to help them perform a variety of teaching, research, seminar, and in-patient care activities in addition to managing outpatient volumes.

For the study, the team focused on the Christian Medical College Hospital in Vellore, where doctors' daily workload has grown primarily due to large patient volumes. The hospital handled a daily load of 5,000 outpatients, 2,000 inpatients, and 125 surgeries and large student intake per year - about 2,000 students in various health disciplines. Ineffective doctor activities plan often resulted in missed activities, long duration of stay for patients, more than 10 hospital hours per day for doctors, and low patient satisfaction levels.

The study proposes alternate plans for doctors' activities without compromising on their involvement in other activities and maintaining the same quality of patient service. "The period of stay of outpatients as well as doctors' hospital hours are reduced substantially, mutually benefiting both the hospital and the patients," said the study.

For example, the timetable suggests that if the patient load is up to 400 per day and the consultation time is between 15 and 20 minutes, then two full OPD days per week would be the best. Two full days OPD cycle is also preferable if the patient load increases to 500 per day. The problem arises only if the patient load is increased to 500 per day and the consultation time is also increased, then the four half-day OPD schedule would be best.

If the hospital follows four half days of OPD schedule, then, clearly the patients are able to get over with their OPD treatment in much less time than before, as in one week now, they can receive consultation four times rather than two times.

The focus of the study is to develop a plan to manage the growth in OPD patient volumes.

However, the intake of both undergraduate and postgraduate students is also expected to increase.

The study also suggests that due to increase in the student batch size, grand ward visits or bedside teaching for all students can be substituted with classroom teaching, where special cases can be shared with a larger audience. By eliminating the grand rounds, there can also be an increased commitment to journal clubs, PG seminars, and research activities.

Professors from IIM- Ahmedabad and IIT- Bombay carry out a study to help doctors manage their time better

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