Development of functional job description and coding systems for physicians

The primary aim of the study is to establish a job analysis methodology specifically tailored for health professionals. We chose neurologists to use the job analysis method because of the complex range of jobs they perform. The first stage of job analysis involved qualitative research. We administered semi-structured interviews to a sample of 30 physicians and conducted an analysis of the interviews using Maxqda coding. We have identified five main responsibilities that relate to physicians' tasks and duties. One of the responsibilities is "healthcare," which exists mostly in work schedules. Additional responsibilities pertain to "research development," "management," "education," and "personal." In these areas of responsibility we have identified 100 tasks and duties. We sent 100 tasks and duties to evaluate 66 physicians on a Likert scale of 5, and 57 physicians responded. Seven tasks classified as "less important" and "very less important" were eliminated. An association between 93 tasks and duties resulted in the identification of 30 tasks and 63 duties. Consequently, we identified four areas of responsibility and 82 tasks and duties that were absent from the physician's work schedules. The creation of two decision trees, specifically the staff, task, and role categories decision tree and the hospital service processes decision tree, will enable physicians' work processes to be tracked through coding. This research represents the first job analysis into health services in our country. According to this study, we suggest promising prospects for future researchers.