Workload and Productivity Measurement for Nuclear Medicine Departments in the Gulf Countries` Hospitals

One of the most important corner stones for efficient performance management is performance measurement.This paper focuses on productivity measurement of Nuclear Medicine (NM) Sections at four different hospitals in Gulf countries.The main purpose of this study is to create a measuring unit that fairly represents each nuclear medicine procedure weight.The scope of this study was not limited to the physicians but it has involved specialists and nurses at Nuclear Medicine Sections.Moreover, the study has attempted to link workload metrics with other financial indicators such as periodic expenses, paid hours, and equipment depreciation to monitor the cost efficiency, operational efficiency, equipment utilization, and staffing issues.A model has been developed through multi-steps to establish the relative value unit (RVU) for measurement of nuclear medicine physicians, specialists, and nurses productivities.The model has been applied to measure the productivity level of the mentioned staff categories during January and February, 2013.The results showed that nurses' productivity can be measured by the number of procedures' performed and using of RVU model for this staff category does not make any difference.However, RVU model showed significant difference in physicians' and specialists' productivity in comparison with the number of performed procedures metric.The sensitivity analysis showed that minimal changes in the time factor will result in a significant change in the weight (RVU) of the procedures but the maximum adjustment factor has less effect.Moreover, the study was unable to measure the weight that is relative to the patient condition, patient age, and special requirements for certain procedures.