Productivity and time use during occupational therapy and nutrition/dietetics clinical education: a cohort study

Abstract

Background: Currently in the Australian higher education sector higher productivity from allied health clinical education placements is a contested issue. This paper will report results of a study that investigated output changes associated with occupational therapy and nutrition/dietetics clinical education placements in Queensland, Australia. Supervisors' and students' time use during placements and how this changes for supervisors compared to when students are not present in the workplace is also presented.

Methodology/principal findings: A cohort design was used with students from four Queensland universities, and their supervisors employed by Queensland Health. There was an increasing trend in the number of occasions of service delivered when the students were present, and a statistically significant increase in the daily mean length of occasions of service delivered during the placement compared to pre-placement levels.

Conclusions/significance: A novel method for estimating productivity and time use changes during clinical education programs for allied health disciplines has been applied. During clinical education placements there was a net increase in outputs, suggesting supervisors engage in longer consultations with patients for the purpose of training students, while maintaining patient numbers. Other activities were reduced. This paper is the first time these data have been shown in Australia and form a sound basis for future assessments of the economic impact of student placements for allied health disciplines.

Figure 1. Occupational therapy and individual case management student-supervisor teams’ occasions of service, outliers removed.

The blue line corresponds with the left axis showing how the number of occasions of service changes over the placement. The red line corresponds with the right axis showing how the length of occasions of services in minutes, changes. At each week of placement, we have provided the number of student-supervisor teams who responded to the survey, and the number of individual responses received from all teams.

Figure 2. Occupational therapy and individual case management student- supervisor teams' daily number of occasions of service.

This box and whisker plot shows the changing trend in student-supervisor teams’ number of occasions of service across the three time periods of interest.

Figure 3. Occupational therapy and individual case management student- supervisor teams’ daily length of occasions of service.

This box and whisker plot shows the changing trend in student-supervisor teams’ length of occasions of service across the three time periods of interest.

Figure 4. Occupational therapists, individual case management nutritionist/dietitians' and students' mean daily time spent in various activities.

The proportion of time (minutes) spent in each of the four key time use categories is shown for occupational therapy and individual case management nutrition/dietetic supervisors pre-, during and post-placement, and for students during placement.