Frequency of calls to "on-call" house officer pagers at Auckland City Hospital, New Zealand

Aims To quantify the number of calls made to specified on-call house officer pagers and to comment on possible implications for practice. Methods Seven on-call pagers, covering a range of surgical and medical specialties at Auckland City Hospital, were identified. Data for a 4-month period from April to August 2004 was recorded and analysed in two groups: surgical services and medical services. Statistical software was used to calculate mean times between calls in specified time periods, and to compare differences between surgical and medical services. Results 25,389 pages were recorded. These data are presented as mean frequency of calls to each pager, divided into four time periods. The highest recorded rate was 6.9 minutes (mean) between calls in general surgery (1600-2200 shift), with the lowest recorded rate a mean of one call per 5 hours (2200-0800 shift) in geriatric and general medicine. Conclusions Pager frequency is a potentially useful marker of job acuity and consequent junior doctor stress levels. This study demonstrated a high degree of variability in paging frequency both between services and between time periods. We recommend ongoing monitoring of paging frequencies and more even distribution of after-hours workload.