FTE (full-time equivalent)
FTE (full-time equivalent) expresses a clinician's working time as a fraction of a full-time position, such as 1.0, 0.8 or 0.5 FTE.
FTE stands for full-time equivalent. It expresses how much of a full-time position a person works: 1.0 FTE is full time, 0.8 FTE is four-fifths, 0.5 FTE is half. Each organization defines what 1.0 means, in hours per week, shifts per year, clinic sessions or call nights, so a 1.0 FTE hospitalist and a 1.0 FTE radiologist may not work the same hours. Academic departments often split a faculty member's time into clinical FTE (cFTE) and time for teaching, research or administration, and only the clinical part drives the schedule.
In scheduling, FTE sets each person's expected share. If nine full-time physicians share 365 nights of call, each carries about 40.6. If one of them works at 0.8 FTE, the group totals 8.8 FTE, so each full-time physician carries about 41.5 nights and the physician at 0.8 FTE about 33.2. The same math applies to weekends, holidays and service weeks. Some groups choose equal call regardless of FTE; whichever rule applies, it should be written down.
Pitfalls: scaling call by FTE but not weekends and holidays, so part-time physicians carry a full share of the least popular days; FTE changes during the year that never reach the targets; and treating protected administrative or research time as available for call.
Common questions
What does 0.8 FTE mean for a physician?
It means the physician works 80 percent of what the organization defines as a full-time position. If full time is five clinical days a week, 0.8 FTE is four. On the call schedule, a physician at 0.8 FTE is usually expected to take about 80 percent of a full-time colleague's share of nights, weekends and holidays, unless the group has agreed otherwise.
What is clinical FTE (cFTE)?
Clinical FTE is the part of a physician's FTE devoted to patient care. A faculty member at 1.0 FTE with half their time in research has a cFTE of 0.5. Academic departments use cFTE to size call, service weeks and clinic sessions, so that people with large research or teaching roles are not scheduled as if they were full-time clinicians.
Is FTE the same as headcount?
No. Headcount is the number of people; FTE is the total of their working fractions. Ten physicians who each work at 0.8 FTE are a headcount of ten but 8.0 FTE. Coverage planning uses FTE, because it tells you how many full-time positions of work the group can actually provide each week.
How Momentum handles it
In Momentum, fairness goals can be weighted, so a physician at half clinical effort can be set to take half the call, weekends and holidays of a full-time colleague.