Assessing the Workload of Health Care Practitioners (Moraghebe Salamat) in Urban Health Posts of West Azarbaijan Province in 2017

Background: With the implementation of the health system reform plan and changing the system of providing services in urban areas, a set of cost-effective and prioritized services are provided under the title of the first-level healthcare package as the active services. Therefore, by changing the type and volume of the services and also increasing the coverage of health network system in urban centers, assessing the workload of health care practitioners (Moraghebe Salamat) can affect the quality and quantity of providing services, providing basic data for human resource planning, and implementation of the changes in accordance with new programs. Objectives: This study aimed to assess the workload of family health care providers in urban health posts of the West Azerbaijan province. Methods: This descriptive-analytic and cross-sectional study conducted in 70 urban Health posts in 12 cities of the West Azerbaijan province in 2017. In each Health posts, health care practitioners (Moraghebe Salamat) were observed in 7 hours and 30 minutes of their daily work for 6 consecutive days for 6 weeks (37 working days) by self-report and sampling method. Results: A total of 59,514 people were monitored by 280 urban health care providers. The average time spent on providing health services for each target group was 16 minutes and 51 seconds. The average daily workload of health care providers that work at Health posts with allowing an hour for routine daily needs was 43% of total their workload. Conclusions: With considering to the low workload of health care providers in urban Health posts, in spite of the reforms in the service delivery system in the form of a health system reform plan, in terms of useful time spent working in the workplace, there are adverse conditions in Health posts.