News: Primary care providers need 26.7 hours a day to give patients recommended care, study shows

Based on a study led by researchers at multiple universities and published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, primary care providers would need 26.7 hours per day to see an average number of patients. This is based on the recommended care providers are trained to give, which the study estimated would take 14.1 hours for recommended preventive care, 7.2 hours for chronic disease care, 2.2 hours for acute care, and 3.2 hours for administrative work every day, Becker’s Hospital Review reported.

The study was conducted as a simulation on hypothetical panels of 2,500 patients, based on data from the United States 2017-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination survey. Estimates were also re-estimated in the setting of team-based care, which reduced the time a provider needs to deliver care significantly but still not enough for the average number of patients. With team-based care (which involves nurses, physician assistants, counselors, and others in the delivery of recommended care), physicians would need a total of 9.3 hours per day. Estimates from the study suggest they would need two hours for preventative care, 3.6 hours for chronic disease care, 1.1 hours for acute care, and 2.6 hours for administrative work every day.

Justin Porter, MD, lead study author and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, commented in a news release, "There is this sort of disconnect between the care we've been trained to give and the constraints of a clinic workday. We have an ever-increasing set of guidelines, but clinic slots have not increased proportionately."

Editor’s note: To read Becker’s Hospital Review’s coverage of this story, click here. To read the findings of the study, click here.