Appropriate Number of Physicians with Occupational and Environmental Medicine Competencies: Nopparatrajathanee Hospital as a Case Study

Abstract

The objective of this study was to assess workloads and physician workforce for occupational and environmental medicine (OEM) tasks in a tertiary hospital. The study was conducted at Nopparatrajathanee Hospital, Department of Medical Services, Ministry of Public Health, the solely OEM specialized agency of Thailand. A physician survey was performed using a set of questionnaire to obtain data on the total number of an OEM working hours that multidisciplinary groups of physicians across departments had been carrying out collectively through their current practices. Altogether 82.4% of the OEM physicians re-sponded to the survey. It was found that OEM workload was 21.3% of the total hospital workload; and the estimated number of physicians required for the tasks was 25.2 full time equivalent (FTE) persons, while there were currently only 5 board certified OEM physicians in the hospital (with confidence level of 85.0±10.0%). This indicated the need to find ways to increase the number of competent OEM physicians to fulfill the needs of the Thai working populations and their health problems.