Table 4.

Descriptive analysis of indirect care functions

Function number and name		Functions recorded n 3 = 875	Total time (minutes)	Mean time (minutes) (standard deviation)		Percentage of total time attributed to each function	Rank of percentage of total time attributed to the function
1	Administration	194	2,350	12.1	(8.2)	14.8%	2
2	Time-out break	164	3,290	20.1	(11.8)	20.8%	1
3	Budget/financial	1	20	20.0	(0.0)	0.1%	22
4	Consultation (non-clinical)	39	405	10.4	(5.6)	2.6%	9
5	Human resources, e.g., appraisal, staff support	4	110	27.5	(15.5)	0.7%	17
6	Human resources – Recruitment	0	0	0.0	(0.0)	0.0%	Not ranked
7	Informal discussion with peers	35	380	10.9	(5.4)	2.4%	10
8	Meetings	41	1,260	30.7	(21.9)	8.0%	5
9	Orientation	3	95	31.7	(12.5)	0.6%	19
10	Planning	38	980	25.8	(34.3)	6.2%	6
11	Presentations/inservices	0	0	0.0	(0.0)	0.0%	Not ranked
12	Professional development	7	240	34.3	(20.2)	1.5%	13
13	Quality improvement activity	21	865	41.2	(38.2)	5.5%	7
14	Report writing/evaluation	4	135	33.8	(18.8)	0.9%	16
15	Research	7	110	15.7	(6.0)	0.7%	18
16	Rostering/work allocation	11	365	33.2	(27.5)	2.3%	11
17	Service development	2	85	42.5	(24.7)	0.5%	20
18	Statistics	35	665	19.0	(14.6)	4.2%	8
19	Supervision/mentoring (provider)	11	225	20.5	(10.5)	1.4%	14
20	Supervision/mentoring (recipient)	2	35	17.5	(17.6)	0.2%	21
21	Teaching (students)	12	160	13.3	(9.3)	1.0%	15
22	Time completing the activity log	127	1,810	14.3	(11.2)	11.4%	4
23	Travel (including walking)	96	1,960	20.4	(11.6)	12.40%	3
24	Other	21	300	14.3	(13.5)	1.9%	12
Total		875	15,845	18.1	(16.1)	100.0%