In hospitals

Doctors need 2.9 hours for documentation

Germany's hospital staff spend almost three hours a day on documentation and verification obligations (symbolic image).(Bild: contrastwerkstatt - stock.adobe.com)

In Austria, the amount of bureaucracy in hospitals and private practices is regularly criticized. A study by the German Hospital Federation (DKG) has now come to the conclusion that doctors in hospitals spend around a third of their working time on documentation and verification obligations.

On average, doctors spend 2.9 hours per day on documentation and nursing staff 2.7 hours. The study examined 225 general hospitals and 98 psychiatric clinics with more than 50 beds each in Germany. "In the health policy debate, the burden placed on hospital staff by a high level of bureaucratic documentation has long been a topic of discussion. This affects not only administrative staff, but also in particular patient-oriented professional groups such as doctors and nursing staff," said the German Hospital Federation (DKI).

"In purely mathematical terms, around 116,600 of almost 343,000 full-time employees (34 percent) in the nursing service of general hospitals are exclusively involved in documentation activities and are no longer available for patient-related nursing activities," the authors of the study calculate. In the case of doctors, the figure is as high as 36 percent of full-time staff.

This could make the medical and nursing professions less attractive and thus exacerbate the shortage of skilled workers.

Deutsche Krankenhausgesellschaft

"Manpower lies dormant in bureaucracy"
This high expenditure of time could mean additional costs and less time for patient care, it says. "This could make the medical and nursing professions less attractive and thus exacerbate the shortage of specialists."

"The medical workforce is lying dormant in bureaucracy," said the President of the Berlin Medical Association, Peter Bobbert. The Chairman of the German Hospital Association, Gerald Gaß, described the figures as "shocking". A direct comparison with Austria is not possible.