Developing a Quantitative Staffing to Workload Tool in an Ambulatory Setting.

Ambulatory staffing to workload based on visit volume in an outpatient setting is an elusive formula, and the literature describing such processes is limited. One health system tasked a multidisciplinary team with developing an ambulatory staffing to workload tool to meet the needs of staff, management, and leadership. The resultant tool includes an automated dashboard for determining staffing needs on the basis of quantified workload, prospective modeling, and historical dashboards to demonstrate actual staffing (full-time equivalents) to workload (outpatient volumes) compared with budget.