Physicians in the emergency department are most likely to interrupt one task to perform another while ward doctors are most likely to perform two tasks simultaneously, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal of Quality and Safety.
Researchers performed a meta-analysis of three studies examining multitasking and task-switching in ED physicians, ward physicians and ward nurses.
ED physicians task-swapped two times as often as ward physicians and three times often as ward nurses. Ward physicians multitasked twice as often as ED physicians as 20 percent more often than ward nurses.
Despite these differences, all clinicians prioritized direct care tasks over documentation tasks, indicating that patient safety may be a significant factor in motivating task-switching and multitasking as work management strategies.
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