Department of Radiation Oncology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA.
J Appl Clin Med Phys. 2009 Dec 3;11(1):2987. doi: 10.1120/jacmp.v11i1.2987.
Justification of clinical physics staffing levels is difficult due to the lack of direction as how to equate clinical needs with the staffing levels and competency required. When a physicist negotiates staffing requests to administration, she/he often refers to American College of Radiology staffing level suggestions, and resources such as the Abt studies. This approach is often met with questions as to how to fairly derive the time it takes to perform tasks. The result is often insufficient and/or inexperienced staff handling complex and cumbersome tasks. We undertook development of a staffing justification grid to equate the clinical needs to the quantity and quality of staffing required. The first step is using the Abt study, customized to the clinical setting, to derive time per task multiplied by the anticipated number of such tasks. Inclusion of vacation, meeting, and developmental time may be incorporated along with allocated time for education and administration. This is followed by mapping the tasks to the level of competency/experience needed. For example, in an academic setting the faculty appointment levels correlate with experience. Non-staff personnel, such as IMRT QA technicians or clerical staff, should also be part of the equation. By using the staffing justification grid, we derived strong documentation to justify a substantial budget increase. The grid also proved useful when our clinical demands changed. Justification for physics staffing can be significantly strengthened with a properly developed data-based time and work analysis. A staffing grid is presented, along with a development methodology that facilitated our justification. Though our grid is for a large academic facility, the methodology can be extended to a non-academic setting, and to a smaller scale. This grid method not only equates the clinical needs with the quantity of staffing, but can also help generate the personnel budget, based on the type of staff and personnel required. The grid is easily adaptable when changes to the clinical environment change, such as an increase in IMRT or IGRT applications.
临床物理师人员配备水平的论证较为困难，因为缺乏如何将临床需求与所需人员配备水平和能力相匹配的指导。当物理学家向管理层协商人员配备请求时，她/他通常会参考美国放射学院的人员配备水平建议，以及 Abt 研究等资源。这种方法常常会引发如何公平地确定完成任务所需时间的问题。结果往往是处理复杂和繁琐任务的人员配备不足和/或经验不足。我们着手开发人员配备论证表，将临床需求与所需人员数量和质量相匹配。第一步是使用 Abt 研究（根据临床情况定制）得出每项任务的时间乘以预计此类任务的数量。可以包括休假、会议和发展时间，以及分配给教育和管理的时间。然后将任务映射到所需的能力/经验水平。例如，在学术环境中，教师的任命级别与经验相关。非工作人员，如调强放疗 QA 技术员或文职人员，也应包含在等式中。通过使用人员配备论证表，我们得出了强有力的文件来证明大幅增加预算的合理性。当我们的临床需求发生变化时，该表也非常有用。通过正确开发基于数据的时间和工作分析，可以大大加强物理师人员配备的论证。本文介绍了一个人员配备论证表，以及一个有助于我们论证的开发方法。虽然我们的表格是针对大型学术机构的，但该方法可以扩展到非学术环境和较小的规模。该表格方法不仅将临床需求与人员配备数量相匹配，还可以根据所需人员的类型生成人员预算。当临床环境发生变化，例如调强放疗或图像引导放疗应用增加时，该表格很容易适应变化。
