Removing ‘red tape’ could free up workload equal to over 300 Manitoba doctors: report

A new joint report estimates Manitoba physicians spend roughly 9.7 hours a week on administrative tasks.

Eliminating all unnecessary paperwork and administrative tasks for Manitoba physicians could free up more than 660,000 hours annually—equivalent to adding 326 doctors to the province’s health-care system—according to a new report.

Published this month, the report by the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business estimates that each Manitoba physician spends an average of 9.7 hours per week on administrative tasks.

That’s down from 10.1 hours from 2023, according to research from Doctors Manitoba, the organization representing physicians in the province.

Still, that figure is higher than the current national average of 9.1 hours on administrative tasks per week.

The report, which surveyed nearly 2,000 doctors across the country last summer, found that 47 per cent of their administrative tasks were unnecessary, which could be eliminated, simplified, or delegated to someone else.

According to the 61-page document, reassigning delegable administrative tasks alone could reduce workloads by an amount equivalent to adding 199 full-time doctors across the province.

“Excessive paperwork and unnecessary administrative tasks continue to impact care by pulling doctors away from seeing more patients,” said Dr. Nichelle Desilets, president of Doctors Manitoba.

Most of the unnecessary work stemmed from health system processes, insurance companies, government forms, pharmacies, and electronic record systems, the report notes.

Surveyed physicians said the freed-up time would be used to improve their work-life balance, spend more time with existing patients, and to take on additional patients.

“This would not get rid of our physician shortage altogether, but it is an important part of improving access for patients and, furthermore, an important part of retaining the physicians that we’ve worked really hard to recruit,” Desilets said.

Streamlining specialist referrals and diagnostic test ordering is one of the biggest ways administrative burdens could be reduced in Manitoba, she added.

Other ways to cut down include simplifying medical forms and introducing interoperable electronic records, Desilets said.

“On average, I have probably 14 active passwords that I need to maintain to log into the various electronic and digital systems that allow me to do my work,” Desilets said.

“As a rural generalist, I work in a lot of different domains, and so it becomes necessary, but the password time alone is a burden.”

Doctors Manitoba also notes that administrative burden can be reduced by adopting AI scribes, which are digital tools that use AI to generate medical notes from real-time conversations between a physician and their patient.

“This is really AI helping with paperwork, not replacing a physician in that important patient-physician relationship,” Desilets said.

Last November, the provincial government said during its throne speech it would eliminate sick notes, citing “unnecessary paperwork” for doctors. Legislation to eliminate sick notes for work absences of less than a week is expected to be introduced this spring.

Nationally, the report notes Canadian physicians spent 19.8 million hours annually on unnecessary administrative tasks, which, if removed, could unlock capacity equal to over 9,000 full-time physicians.

Manitoba has over 3,500 licensed physicians, according to Doctors Manitoba.

The full report is available online.