Primary care: is there enough time for prevention?
OBJECTIVE
We sought to determine the amount of time required for a primary care physician to provide recommended preventive services to an average patient panel.


METHODS
We used published and estimated times per service to determine the physician time required to provide all services recommended by the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), at the recommended frequency, to a patient panel of 2500 with an age and sex distribution similar to that of the US population.


RESULTS
To fully satisfy the USPSTF recommendations, 1773 hours of a physician's annual time, or 7.4 hours per working day, is needed for the provision of preventive services.


CONCLUSIONS
Time constraints limit the ability of physicians to comply with preventive services recommendations.
Yarnall
Kimberly S H
KS
Department of Community and Family Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA. yarna001@mc.duke.edu
Pollak
Kathryn I
KI
Østbye
Truls
T
Krause
Katrina M
KM
Michener
J Lloyd
JL
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003376:Counseling / Q000600:supply & distribution; D005260:Female; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011314:Preventive Health Services / Q000145:classification / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011322:Primary Prevention; D013996:Time and Motion Studies; D014481:United States