Limits on the number of hours residents can work in a single shift have made no difference in patient safety outcomes, according to a new study in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
For the study, researchers analyzed outcomes data from general medicine patients at a large academic medical center from July 2008 to June 2012. The team looked at multiple outcomes, including length of stay, presence of hospital-acquired conditions, inpatient mortality, 30-day readmission rates and intensive care unit (ICU) admissions.
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) first placed duty-hour restrictions on residents in 2003, intending to reduce medical errors, improve patient care and enhance resident quality of life. A 2011 residency work-hour mandate limited first-year residents to shifts that are no longer than 16 hours.
But the recent duty-hour study showed there were no major differences in patient safety outcomes pre- and post-reform. The study did show that since the mandate, patients discharged from resident services are more likely to be admitted to the ICU, but they are at lower risk of readmission within 30 days.
A study published in JAMA Surgery last year found the duty-hour restrictions correlated with a 25.8 percent drop in operating case load. Another JAMA Surgery study, published in May, found the majority of surgical residents disapproved of the ACGME’s duty hour regulations.
