Quantifying and monitoring knowledge work in a hospital setting

In order to ensure efficient business operations at a hospital, it is sensible to focus on areas where the effects of changes can be the most visible. Since the cost of labour accounts for more than half of the total hospital costs, introducing a system of quantifying and monitoring knowledge work seems reasonable. Under this system, the costs of labour would not reflect time spent at the workplace, but would become the reflection of actual work. Two steps are necessary for the introduction of such a system. For the first step, it is necessary to establish or determine a set of tasks that compose an employee's job at a hospital, while the second step comprises of calculating the same employee's annual work obligation. Standards for human resources must be established that would contain both information on the time necessary to perform a specific task and the corresponding intensity of knowledge work necessary for each task. Defining a system for quantifying and monitoring such work is made more difficult by the very fact that knowledge work is predominant in a hospital. The providers of the basic mission in any hospital are largely a diverse and highly educated workforce we refer to as knowledge workers. Therefore it is necessary that this system depends on standards of human resources that reflect the characteristics of knowledge work. The design of the system for quantifying and monitoring the effectiveness of work in a hospital setting, presented in this article, was derived from a known framework for quantification of knowledge work. We presented our methodology on a case of treating community-acquired pneumonia.