Mastering the medical mindshift: Up to a third of working time is wasted

Data, facts and instruments on the German health system

What it’s all about

Efficiency and productivity are – as practice management comparisons and work analyses show – only sub-standard in many GP and specialist practices due to misalignments in practice management.

Example 1: Disorder

A problem frequently encountered in GP and specialist practices is disorder. It leads to processes being interrupted and work having to be postponed. The consequences: Working time and resources are not used optimally, frustration, stress and anger are rampant. If, for example, patient records have to be searched for 50 times a day (not uncommon in many practices) and an average of 1.5 minutes is needed per record, this results in a completely unproductive waste of time (1.2 hours) that could be used for other work.

Calculated over a year, this adds up to more than 280 hours or a cost block of EUR 4,300.

The negative impact is even greater when patient treatments are interrupted or prolonged by searches: scheduling gets confused and chaos ensues. In addition: for patients, disorganised and hectic staff searches are signals of a lack of professionalism and thus damaging to the image.

Example 2: The way is the goal

Walking routes are not given much consideration in medical practices, as the daily walking workload is not even actively perceived in view of the tasks and work involved. However, the spatial arrangement of the contact points and the coordination of work and the resulting walking distances have a significant influence on the time available and the workload that can be handled.

A case example shows the possibilities: the distance between the material room of a practice and the reception is 36 metres. Each of the three medical assistants covers this distance 60 times a day and needs 45 seconds each time.

Calculated over all employees, the practice team spends 2.2 hours per day travelling between the two practice points, 517 hours per year, corresponding to costs of EUR 7,760.

If, for example, the materials room is moved directly next to the reception – if a corresponding option exists – this time is available daily for other work.

One problem rarely comes alone

In many practices, these and/or other deficits multiply and lead to the fact that one third of the work cannot be directly or indirectly devoted to patient care, but to error correction.

In the convenience process to efficiency and productivity

The solution is to carry out a Practice Management Comparison©. The validated survey concept is characterised by the following performance features:

Can be carried out cost-effectively at any time without an on-site consultant.
Low workload: 30 minutes of doctor’s working time, 20 minutes per MFA and 2 minutes per patient (up to 100 can be surveyed).
7 analyses in one package: best practice benchmarking, comparison of specialist groups, staff and patient surveys, SWOT, portfolio and optimisation analysis.
Objective and representative 360-degree assessment of practice work based on practice management descriptions from more than 15,000 practice operations.

The result is a comprehensive, easy-to-understand expertise that not only illuminates the status of practice management in detail, but also provides an average of 40 concrete and immediately implementable suggestions for improvement for optimising daily work and thus for gaining quality of work as well as freedom of decision and action.