{
  "abstract": "Background Physicians are increasingly interested in part-time employment. However, the impact of part-time work on efficiency and quality of care of inpatients is unknown.Objectives To investigate the association between part-time clinical work of hospitalists in General Internal Medicine (GIM) and resource utilisation and short-term patient outcomes.Design Retrospective study.Setting GIM wards of 3 Swiss teaching hospitals.Participants Each inpatient was categorised as having received care mainly (>50%) by part-time or full-time hospitalists. Part-time clinical work was defined as employment of <100% as a clinician. We included 3557 cases cared for mainly by part-time and 4973 by full-time physicians.Primary and secondary outcome measures Primary outcome was length of hospital stay, secondary outcomes included 30-day readmission, in-hospital mortality, hospitalisation cost and time to completion of the discharge letter. We assessed the association between both groups and outcomes using generalised estimating equations, clustering for individual patients and adjusting for patient and hospitalist characteristics.Results There was no statistically relevant difference in length of stay in cases cared for mainly by part-time (mean 7.3 days, 95% CI 7.1 to 7.6) compared with full-time hospitalists (mean 7.6 days, 95% CI 7.3 to 7.8; p=0.18). Time to completion of the discharge letter was longer in the part-time (mean 11.4 days, 95% CI 11.0 to 11.8) versus full-time group (mean 10.9 days, 95% CI 10.6 to 11.2, p=0.049). There was no statistically significant difference between groups for the other outcomes.Conclusion We found no evidence that part-time clinical work of hospitalists negatively affects resource utilisation and short-term patient outcomes compared with full-time work.",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of General Internal Medicine, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland",
        "Department of Emergency Medicine, Hôpital de Sion Centre Hospitalier du Valais Romand, Sion, Switzerland"
      ],
      "name": "Lisa Bretagne"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of General Internal Medicine, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland"
      ],
      "name": "Christine Roten"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of General Internal Medicine, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland",
        "School of Health Professions Education, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands"
      ],
      "name": "Stefanie Mosimann"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of General Internal Medicine, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland",
        "Institute of Primary Health Care (BIHAM), University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland"
      ],
      "name": "Manuel R Blum"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of General Internal Medicine, HFR Riaz, Riaz, Switzerland",
        "University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland"
      ],
      "name": "Marie Débieux"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Internal Medicine, Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland"
      ],
      "name": "Antoine Martin"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Internal Medicine, Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland",
        "Innovation and Clinical Research Directorate, Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland"
      ],
      "name": "Vanessa Kraege"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of General Internal Medicine, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland"
      ],
      "name": "Thomas Beck"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of General Internal Medicine, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland"
      ],
      "name": "Drahomir Aujesky"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of General Internal Medicine, Fribourg Cantonal Hospital, Fribourg, Switzerland"
      ],
      "name": "Marco Mancinetti"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Internal Medicine, Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland"
      ],
      "name": "Marie Méan"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of General Internal Medicine, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland"
      ],
      "name": "Christine Baumgartner"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Association of part-time clinical work of hospitalists with efficiency and quality of care on medical wards: a retrospective study",
  "uid": "b3d5a33b-1c4e-52dd-afe6-8170e1e18d53"
}