Hybrid Professionals and Academic Productivity: The Case of the University Polyclinic in Messina (Sicily)

The productivity of medical staff within a polyclinic is not an easy task due to the multiple activities that physicians must perform at the same time: not only healthcare for patients, but also academic activities, such as scientific research and teaching. Hybrid professionals are healthcare professionals who have to play multiple roles, often not precisely identified. This analysis examines the case study of the University Polyclinic of Messina (Italy) where three university departments and 7 Dipartimenti di Attività Integrate (DAI) are distinguished and physicians (both professors and researchers) are called to reconcile multiple tasks. Given the distinction between university departments and DAIs, the aim of this contribution is to identify the organizational elements that prove to be predictors of scientific efficiency and productivity. To what extent does the inclusion in a DAI or within a university department affect individual incentives? A new dataset is built for the present research containing information on University Polyclinic of Messina physicians (full professors, associate professors, researchers). From the Scopus online database (https://www.scopus.com/home.uri) individual information relating to the number of publications, the number of citations, h-index was obtained. The latter is used to assess the quality of individual research; in order to evaluate the teaching activity, the number of hours dedicated to didactical activities is taken into account, together with the number of teaching hours required by one’s role. Information related to remuneration and the circumstance of carrying out intramural activities has also been included. A thorough statistical analysis is carried out and the individual groups (DAI and university departments) are compared through the Kruskal Wallis test. Estimating a Poisson Gamma mixture model highlights those variables that are significant predictors of scientific productivity. Attention paid to organizational methods should allow identifying the ideal setting for hybrid professionals to practice the medical profession, while carrying out managerial duties, without compromising the quality of teaching and research. An efficient solution could thus be proposed to the complex multi-objective optimization problem that healthcare professionals are called to answer.