Table 2.
Radical changes at the workplace caused by the COVID-19 pandemic
| Category | Examples of changes |
|---|---|
| Workload, new tasks and demands (individual level) | Higher workload through hygiene measures and increased responsibility |
| High burden through an increase in phone calls and digital services | |
| Many deaths | |
| Very high demand for communication | |
| Patient education on vaccination and behavioral issues; patients demanding information on vaccination and therapies related to the pandemic | |
| Continuing change, new demands, and lack of work routine | |
| Increased demand of other units for COVID-19-related information (immune suppression) | |
| Strong increase in digitalization, missing competences of the population | |
| Patient education on digital services | |
| Expanded communication with patients to mitigate COVID-19 restrictions and prohibited visits of relatives | |
| Work life (individual level) | Less time due to higher individual workload related to childcare |
| Risk of infection; social isolation | |
| Wearing face masks is exhausting, social distancing not always possible | |
| Part-time work because of childcare responsibility | |
| Relocation to a COVID-19 ward with alternating shift duty | |
| Relocation to another specialty due to unit closing | |
| Missing academic conferences | |
| Weekend shifts due to changes in hospital admission | |
| Organization of work (organizational level) | Increase of email, phone, and online counselling, consequently less predictable organization, no clear structure of office hours |
| Home office | |
| Online/video-based office hours, phone calls | |
| Increase in work hours, often caused by strong increases in digital services | |
| Increase in demand for patient education and information | |
| Tasks taken over from GPs, higher demand for patient education | |
| Changes in the organization of the unit/the surgery, changing time management | |
| Patients increasingly cancel appointments without notice | |
| Improved patient management through better planning | |
| Service delivery (organizational level) | Financial losses |
| More time required per patient | |
| Extended length of stay of COVID-19-positive patients | |
| Reduced number of beds, shortened length of stay of patients, admissions during weekend | |
| Investigation in personal protective equipment (PPE) and new equipment to improve infection control and hygiene | |
| Poor quality of care of non-COVID-19 patients | |
| Reduced quality of care due to strong increase in patient phone calls | |
| Reduced number of beds, reduced number of patients | |
| Social distancing rules and hygiene measures reduce the number of patients permitted to be in the surgery | |
| Longer waiting lists of patients |
Source: authors’ own table, based on item 6.4, qualitative information; responses translated (verbatim and paraphrased)
Item: Has the pandemic led to any radical changes at your workplace (next to hygiene measures)? If yes, which ones?