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Cited by 13Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnoutWorkplace Health and Well-beingHealthcare Operations and Scheduling Optimization

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 34 of the 34 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The pace of hospital life: A mixed methods study

Open access
Long, Janet C., Pomare, Chiara, Ellis, Louise A., Churruca, Kate, Braithwaite, Jeffrey·2021·PLOS ONE
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0255775PMC PMC8372908
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Abstract

The pace-of-life hypothesis is a socio-psychological theory postulating that citizens of different cities transact the business of life at varying paces, and this pace is associated with a number of population level variables. Here we apply the pace-of-life hypothesis to a hospital context to empirically test the association between pace and patient and staff outcomes. As pressure on hospitals grow and pace increases to keep up with demand, is there empirical evidence of a trade-off between a rapid pace and poorer outcomes? We collected data from four large Australian hospitals, inviting all staff (clinical and non-clinical) to complete a survey, and conducted a series of observations of hospital staff’s walking pace and transactional pace. From these data we constructed three measures of pace: staff perception of pace, transactional pace, and walking pace. Outcome measures included: hospital culture, perceived patient safety, and staff well-being outcomes of job satisfaction and burnout. Overall, participants reported experiencing a “fast-paced” “hurried” and “rapid” pace-of-life working in the Australian hospital sector. We found a significant difference in perceived pace across four hospital sites, similar to trends observed for transactional pace. This provides support that the pace-of-life hypothesis may apply to the hospital context. We tested associations between faster perceived pace, hospital culture, staff well-being and patient safety. Results revealed perceived faster pace significantly predicted negative perceptions of organizational culture, greater burnout and lower job satisfaction. However, perceived pace did not predict perceptions of patient safety. Different perceptions of hospital pace-of-life were found between different clinical settings and the type of care delivered; staff working in emergency departments reported significantly “faster-paced” work environments than staff working in palliative, aged care, or rehabilitation wards.

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Crossref · 10.1371/journal.pone.0255775

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  • Hospital settings are characterised by complex organisational structures, multidisciplinary teams, and high-pressure, fast-paced work.

    “Hospital settings are a particularly unique context, characterised by complex organisational structures, multidisciplinary teams, and high-pressure, fast-paced work [17,18].”

    From Explainable AI in hospital clinical decision support systems: A scoping review of healthcare professionals’ perspectives (2026) · cites this paper as [17]

    The Introduction (page unavailable) describes pressure on hospital staff to work faster, and the Results, ‘Pace in different clinical settings’ (page unavailable), find that emergency-department staff perceive their work as faster-paced than staff in several other wards. The cited paper does not establish the sentence’s claims about complex organisational structures or multidisciplinary teams. (LLM, conf=0.87)

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Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. JW Creswell, 2003, Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods design
  2. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2016, IRSD INTERACTIVE MAP
  3. RV Levine, 1988, The pace of life across cultures, The social psychology of time: New perspectives, 39, 92
  4. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2010, Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture
  5. IBM Corp, 2017, IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 25.0

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Metadata

Authors
Long, J. C., Pomare, C., Ellis, L. A., Churruca, K., & Braithwaite, J.
Affiliations
Macquarie University (AU)
Corresponding author
Long, Janet C.
ORCID
Venue
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2021-08-18
Volume
16
Issue
8
Pages
e0255775
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0255775
PMC
PMC8372908
OpenAlex
W3195406391
Cited by
8
References
34
Citations by year
2025: 5 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1
FWCI
0.84
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
National Health and Medical Research Council (Partnership Grant (9100002), Investigator Grant APP1176620)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Workplace Health and Well-being
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Healthcare Operations and Scheduling Optimization
Keywords
walking speed, hospital culture, patient safety, employee well-being, burnout, job satisfaction, emergency department, clinical settings, hospital staff
MeSH terms
Adult, Aged, Australia, Burnout, Professional, Cities, Female, Health Personnel, Hospitals, Humans, Job Satisfaction, Male, Middle Aged, Nursing Staff, Hospital, Palliative Care, Surveys and Questionnaires, Stress, Psychological, Organizational Culture, Workplace, Patient Safety

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