82
European Journal of Public Health, Vol. 24, Supplement 2, 2014
participated in some study about the attitudes toward time resource management. Conclusion Lack of advanced planning of time spent for different managerial activities, lack of priorities setting and incapability of saying ‘‘No’’ are among the main obstacles for effective time management. The low percentage of health care managers (15%) included in relevant studies proves the necessity of more profound research in this area of management. Key messages Despite the resource deficit in hospitals, time resource is underestimated in the everyday practice of health care managers. Analyzing unused time reserves and generating time budgets adequate to the work position create conditions for effective utilization of the time resource.
Health care managers’ opinion about the obstacles for effective time management (Bulgaria 2013) Gena Grancharova M Draganova, S Aleksandrova-Yankulovska, G Grancharova, N Veleva, T Vekov Department of Medical Ethics, Healthcare Management and Information Technologies, Faculty of Public health, Medical University of Pleven, Pleven, Bulgaria Contact:
[email protected]
Background Effective resource management is a core of organizational development. Supply with resources (human, material, financial) usually varies in quantity and quality among different health care institutions and managers. There is only one universal resource which is equally allocated among all health care managers – the time resource. The effectiveness of overall leadership and managerial activity depends very much on the way the time resource is managed. Aim: To analyze the main obstacles for effective time management in everyday activities of health care managers in Bulgarian hospitals. Material and Methods Self-administered questionnaires are distributed among 244 health care managers in 14 hospitals (7 municipal and 7 regional) in North Bulgaria from Feb. 2012 to Feb. 2013. The response rate is 71.7%. The survey includes 86 questions based on Roseman, Friedman, Norville and Raffoni standard questionnaires. Data processing is performed with statistical package SPSS v.13.0. Results More than 70% of the respondents consider that the lack of advanced planning of time spent for different managerial activities is the main obstacle for effective time management. Half of the health care managers point out that they ‘‘never’’ plan their daily activities. The larger part of the respondents (68%) sets priorities ‘‘seldom’’ and ‘‘sometimes’’. More than half of them (60.5%) underline that very rare they are able to say ‘‘No’’ when are asked to respond to some problems unplanned and not related to their managerial functions. High proportion of the respondents (60%) attempts changing their time related habits. Significant relationship is found between the duration of managerial experience and the willingness to change their time management ( 2 = 10.3; o < 0.01). More than two thirds of the subjects (85%) claim that they had never
