(Bloomberg) — Almost half of
Seven percent of 506 hospital-based physicians surveyed said their heavy workload likely led to a patient complication, and 5% reported it probably caused a death over the past year. The findings are published in a research letter released Monday by JAMA Internal Medicine.
Doctors are increasingly taking on more patients to compensate for cuts in payments from health insurers, the researchers say. That workload is projected to increase as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act expands insurance coverage to 30 million more Americans. The researchers, based at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, say there is a risk that rising patient volumes may increase costs by decreasing quality.
“Excessively increasing the workload may lead to suboptimal care and less direct patient care time, which may paradoxically increase, rather than decrease costs,” the study’s authors write.
Forty percent of doctors said they saw an unsafe number of patients at least once a month with 25% saying it prevented them from fully discussing treatment options or answering questions, according to the survey.
Researchers electronically surveyed doctors in November 2010 using a physician networking website. The average age of the physicians was 38 with an average salary of $180,000. Doctors say they could safely manage 15 people during a shift if they were able to devote 100% of their time to patient care.
Lawmakers have moved to prevent medical errors by putting restrictions on the number of hours doctors in training can work and set standards for nursing staffing levels. There are no similar limits on workloads for physicians who focus primarily on care of hospitalized patients.
