A work sampling study of midlevel health professionals in a rural medical clinic.

A work sampling study was initiated to provide a comprehensive description of the tasks performed by midlevel health personnel in the rural component of an experimental medical care delivery system. The investigation determined the proportion of time spent on various activities by the staff members of a rural clinic which is linked to supervisory physicians in a distant urban medical center. Over 800 observations were recorded during ten randomly selected days in a two-month period on each of the three staff members. The family nurse practitioner spent one-third of her time in direct patient care activities with almost one-half of the day devoted to indirect patient care tasks. The laboratory aide allocated one-half of her day to providing direct patient services whereas the clerk-receptionist spent over 40 per cent of her day on patient records and billing. Work sampling results were considered within a comparative framework to qualitatively assess performance. The findings were coupled with proposed changes in administrative and medical policy to provide a quantitative basis for developing cost-reducing alternative staffing configurations.