Work Measurement & Measures of Work In The Publicly Funded Health Services of New Zealand.

This article looks at the use of work measurement and other measurement techniques within the health services in New Zealand. Work measurement has, since the advent of scientific management activities of planning and control. Techniques include time studies, motion studies, combinations of these such as predetermined motion-time studies, various kinds of estimates, work and activity sampling, and production studies. These have the common objective of predicting the actual amount of time required to carry out a specified task, thus enabling managers to tighten control of human resources and thereby improve efficiency. Work measurement has been a traditional management tool in manufacturing organizations. A survey carried out in 1990 indicated that the majority of manufacturers in New Zealand were using work measurement techniques. Publicly funded health services in New Zealand have been subject to similar pressures to the manufacturing sector. It was to be expected that health service managers would search for proven techniques to improve efficiency of their organizations. Work measurement provides one such tool.